


Conquest of Spaces

by ziusura



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Swearing, mention of terrorism, mild violence, onscreen very minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 73,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziusura/pseuds/ziusura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his second real run-in with the Zurek forces, Stiles ends up on the same ship as his childhood Bee-Eff-Eff, Scott, and they're excited to get things back in action. Mainly, their dreams of piloting a two person ship, or in Stiles' case after an event that leaves him unable to pilot, navigating. But for Stiles, his dreams have largely been unrecognized. </p><p>Until he joins Scott's ship The Crowned Galaxy, that is. He scores a five with someone, problem is that that someone is Derek Hale, a known terrorist exonerated from his crimes due to a lack of evidence, and hell if Stiles wants to fly with that. Hell, Hale keeps his identity hidden so clearly he doesn't want Stiles to fly with that either. Good thing there's Scott and his new coworkers/friends, Erica and Boyd, plus his hot new boss nicknamed Silver to keep him happy and sane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Teen Wolf Big Bang](http://teenwolf-bb.livejournal.com/).
> 
> This was quite a journey, so thank you to redweathertiger for encouraging me, and to jonjo and manda for the beta, who without I never would've known that the singular of biceps is also biceps (I would like to slap the person that decided that so hard). This was supposed to be twenty-five thousand words at most, and it turned out to be almost three times that, so without them I wouldn't be here. 
> 
> I tried my best to warn for anything in the tags. There's a war so there's violence, though it's mild, and one character is heavily referred to as a terrorist, occasionally with ableist language included (ex: "terrorist PTSD"). There are mentions of terrorist acts. The character that dies onscreen can't even really be considered minor, but it is onscreen. There are some poor reactions to anxiety, including a panic attack. I gave Erica a trigger for her seizures, which is different from canon and doesn't encompass her full epileptic canon identity.
> 
> Anything in italics is a flashback and they're from the same scene. 
> 
> In case it may be a source of confusion for you, clip ≠ klick. It is distance measuring slang unique to this world.
> 
> Thank you so much to [Yolanna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yolanna), who created the lovely art you'll see in the story. Please send your love to her fantastic art [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1088611), or click the work's inspired by this one link.


	2. Chapter 2

_“I wanna show you what I’ve learned so far,” Stiles said during lunch, pushing the green beans on his plate around to find the bits of bacon mixed in._

_He’d been taking a flight class for the past month or so to learn how to fly an airbike, which was nothing really more than an oil drum shaped thing with wings and one or two openings for a pilot and passenger. It wasn’t what he wanted to fly, nowhere close, but he couldn’t start flying the big boys until he turned seventeen and passed the pilots exam. And he definitely had plans to do so._

_He had dreams of flying a small transport ship far faster than his dad’s old airbike, going from airport to airship with messages and supplies and maybe meeting up with a pretty captain who’d make an exception for an awesome transporter like Stiles. Just like his mom. Except for the whole falling in love with a captain bit, since his dad had never left the ground more than the three meters an airbike allowed. His mom wanted to fly free and high, moving far past any problems and leaving them behind her beneath her wings, but grounded herself to be with a man who wanted to make sense and order of the world around him. And Stiles couldn’t help but think it was romantic, even if he had to overcome the ick factor because they were his _parents_. _

_“Eat your veggies first,” his mom said from across the table, smiling wide because she was doing the very same thing with her own green beans. It wasn’t fair for parents to do one thing and tell their kids to do another thing, a_ gross _thing like eating veggies, Stiles thought. It was a good thing he loved her, that was for sure, otherwise he might have to complain._

_They were suited up in their leather flight suits (“Safety’s always important, Stiles. Even if you’re not going more than a meter off the ground, you’ve gotta wear your flight suit.”) and pushing Stiles’ dad’s old airbike out of the garage no more than ten minutes later, vegetables lying baconless and forgotten on their plates._

_“You ready to show me the ropes?” his mom asked, plopping herself into the passenger seat, directly behind the pilot’s._

_“You know it,” Stiles answered with a grin, and his small hands pulled him up and over the edge of the ship and into the open cockpit._

* * *

“The new guy sucks balls.” Scott’s voice came in loud and clear, but his face was flickering in and out of the communication screen, and looking oddly...green. Unless Scott had painted himself, and maybe gotten himself some plastic surgery, the comscreen in the mechanic’s breakroom was picking up interference from another one. Again. 

Well. Stiles couldn’t be bothered to fiddle with the knobs on the side or redial so he figured he could deal as long as the sound was still right. 

“Literal balls?” He asked facetiously, and took a needlessly triumphant bite of his lunch. Scott made a scandalized noise and Stiles sighed in relief. Good. He didn’t have to redial.

“The figurative kind, you ass. Well, maybe literal too, but I’d like to not think about that if that’s okay with you. I don’t want to think about old guy dick until I have one.” 

Stiles started laughing so hard he had to set down his Easy Mac and fork for a second or two to keep from flinging it at himself or getting (another) food stain on his regulation uniform. Scott would so dead arm him hard if he were there. 

“Shut up, dude. You don’t have to look him in the face and not picture him sucking old guy balls after this like I do.”

He could picture Scott’s face, indignant and pinched but with the soft laugh lines crinkling in the corners of his eyes, and then he really _could_ picture his face because the screen shorted out and rebooted. Inconvenient, but the call didn’t drop so whatever. At least Stiles could see him and his grainy face in his dorm room. 

“I could end this call right now and you wouldn’t see me for a week and you’d feel bad, but I won’t because I’m a good friend who doesn’t laugh at a buddy’s mental anguish. So I’m going to travel the moral higher mountain and say: what’s up with you?”

Stiles smirked but elected not to comment on Scott’s inability to keep his idioms straight. They were long out of school and correcting a buddy’s grammar wasn’t cool, or really necessary.

“We clearly never went to the same school of Bee-Eff-Eff-itude because you’re totally supposed to laugh at that. ‘Old guy balls’ is going to be my new greeting for you.”

“Dude, no!”

Stiles leaned forward and set the empty mac and cheese container on the break room table, barely resisting the urge to fidget with it. His toes wriggled in his sneakers instead, skin feeling a little too tight and warm.

“But anyway, Craig’s managed to get my dad in on sending me messages to take the flight exam. I haven’t talked to him in weeks.” It’s said faux casually, and he was sure Scott could tell. His ship advisor had made it no secret that he’d rather have Stiles as a pilot rather than the navigator he had been trying to become for some time, but that was impossible. Stiles was mostly lucky he’d gotten his mechanics license during his time in flight school since he likely would’ve died in his two year service minimum otherwise; a navigator without a passable compatibility score was useless. 

Scott’s face morphed into something soft and concerned, and the corner of Stiles’ mouth lifted in an uncomfortable smile. It was probably not a particularly reassuring face. “That stinks worse than the time Isaac ate burritos before flight training.”

That was why Stiles loved Scott so much. Underneath the mountain of inappropriate jokes and twelve year old humor, there was a caring guy who didn’t want to make his friend uncomfortable. Stiles took his conversation derailment easily; he had gotten what he wanted to say out already. 

“That is somehow the grossest yet most fitting description of how much this stinks, man. You’ve got to get him in one of these call sessions so I can see the face of the man who made Scott vom in his airsick bag.”

Scott’s face slowly pulled into a sly smile, reminiscent of the Grinch, and shot a pointed look offscreen. “Hold on,” he mouthed, and held his fingers to his mouth in a zip-your-lips gesture. Was he going to…? Oh, Jesus. 

The visuals swirled as Scott twisted the camera around to face a pixelated mountain of blankets on a bed in the corner. Pale sunlight filtered in through the open window above the bed, and Stiles knew for a fact they’d just gotten back from a long mission, so this was going to be good. 

Scott’s face ducked back into the screen, grinning wide, and he shot a quick thumbs up at the camera and Stiles. Before Stiles could blink, Scott was next to the bed and ripping the blankets up off the figure underneath, who was apparently Isaac. Isaac’s first reaction was to swing a leg out and kick Scott right in the gut, before he shot straight up and wrestled Scott for control of the blankets. The scuffle lasted maybe a total of six seconds (Scott was so weak if he got hit in the stomach, and it was weird to see that someone else knew that too) and all Stiles saw were murderous eyes and curly hair before the lump was reformed with Isaac underneath, but there he was. The so-called Isaac with the mild intolerance to lactose and copious amounts of beans.

“Scott, I’m going to fucking shit in your shower shoes,” the lump said and Scott wheezed, half laughing and half gasping as he clutched his stomach on the edge of Isaac’s bed where he had collapsed. 

“I’ll shit in your mo—” A foot shot out from underneath the blankets like a rocket and kicked Scott off the bed and onto the floor, and whatever else Scott was going to say was indecipherable through Scott’s laughter.

“Scott, you’re such a—” 

“ _Weeaaaahh_. Enemy attack. All hands to stations. All hands to stations.” 

The siren sounded once more and Isaac and Scott immediately jumped up, serious, and checked their wrist-links for mission information. There wouldn’t be anything though, at least not on their side of the screen. The lights were flashing on Stiles’ end. 

“Scott, I got to go. Talk to you later.” He thumbed the power button on bottom of the screen. How, he wasn’t sure since his hands were shaking so badly, but the thin plastic gave under his skin so he must have done something right.

Scott bolted to his screen, frantically trying to get there before Stiles’ slow communication screen officially turned the image off. “Wait no, I have good news. We’re getting new—”

The feed cut out in a quiet flash and Stiles was out of the break room, anxiously tugging on the uniform jacket he’d slung over his chair earlier. 

First battle, huh. If everything went alright Sandra was definitely going to throw a fit because he was ninety-seven percent sure that he had left his Easy Mac container on the break room table. At least it was a better excuse than ‘Ryan got the new Bi-enix game and I forgot’ like last time. 

The hallways were filled to the brim with people pushing and running to their positions, and Stiles was suddenly aware of why every emergency video he had ever watched stressed the importance of walking, not running. No one was being trampled at least, but it made it difficult for him to make it to the main flight deck. 

He was sliding between a communications officer and a woman carrying a compressionless Hilti gun, when a loud boom blasted through the hallway. Well, Stiles assumed it was loud because it thrummed through his body with a heavy bass beat, though the dull roar in his ears kept him from hearing it. There was fire and smoke down the hallway, towards the flight deck where Stiles should have been, so there had definitely been an explosion. The air whooshed out of the area like God himself was sucking in a giant breath, stealing his breath, the past few seconds of his memory, and his will from his body until the emergency airlocks crashed down and inertia carried Stiles’ body forward into the woman with the Hilti gun. 

The air settled in one quiet moment, heartbeat pulsing in Stiles’ ears, before the pin dropped and all hell broke loose. The Zurek ships had made it through their shields. The threat was real, tangible, and The Calypso was crumbling under their forces.

* * *

The call to his dad had been an experience he wasn’t sure he wanted to repeat. Stiles was still having a little trouble standing and his hands had a constant tremor running through them that wouldn’t quit no matter how still he tried to keep them. But he made the effort for his dad and casually leaned on a chair just out of the communication screen’s view to appear at least a little put together. The jumble of words that spilled out of his dad’s mouth had mostly been a concerned mess of come-back-home and you-should-take-the-pilot-exam; the latter of which Stiles didn’t understand since Craig wasn’t there to pressure his dad into persuading him anymore. Craig had fallen with the ship and Stiles still had no plans to become a pilot. 

Still, it had ended and he’d let his dad know he was okay. All in all the turnout was better than it seemed. The Calypso was definitely lost in pieces somewhere in the Atlantic, but there were only two hundred deaths out of a crew of almost six hundred and she’d taken three-seventy mid-sized Zurek ships with her. Stiles had grown up with this war, and one third wasn’t half bad lately.

* * *

Scott’s face appeared on the tinny public com-screen looking more tired than usual, dark circles under his brown eyes and the usual cheerful glint almost completely gone from them. Stiles ran his fingers along the bottom of the screen in a nervous gesture, barely containing his wince when his skin brushed chewed gum.

“Hey, I’m okay,” he said softly, but Stiles was positive Scott already knew that. The report had gone live to the other ships eight hours ago and Stiles’ name was definitely absent from the list of the dead and missing—Stiles had checked. 

Scott’s lip twitched in a half grin, and he lifted a hand to rub absentmindedly against his eyes. “No, I know. Me an’ Isaac just got back from a follow-up mission and crossing time zones _sucks_. I probably would’ve ignored the call if I hadn’t seen it was your pin.” 

Scott’s grin turned sheepish and the hand on his face fell down to his neck in a half-aborted attempt to scratch where his throat met his shoulder. He kept glancing offscreen and Stiles would bet money he was staring at Isaac, who was likely telling him to hurry it up.

“Hah. Well don’t expect too many more any time soon until I’m reassigned to a new ship. I don’t have the creds for public calls.” 

“That’s where the good news I was going to tell you last time comes in! There are mechanic positions and one navi position open on my ship, and I put in a good word for you with the new guy—if you say old guy balls so help me—so as long as all your stuff is put together, we might be on the same ship for the first time since training.” 

Stiles breath stopped short in his throat. He’d get to see Scott again? That was _really_ good news.

* * *

Scott’s ship was an elite level warship, a fact that became pretty apparent when the transport ship carrying Stiles and twelve other new crew members maneuvered through six different access points in seven layers of shield just to reach the inner defense layer. He’d been taken onto The Crowned Galaxy as a lower level dual-ship tech with the promise of testing him out with a few of the pilots. He wasn’t going to let himself get his hopes up—elite ships were known for only taking dual-ship teams with compatibility levels eight or above and Stiles had never gotten higher than a three with anyone, but maybe this time he’d get it.

Stiles was given a key card and a code upon entry, which would only really get him into the common areas, his dormitory room, the flight deck, and the supply room. They used his cadet picture from back when he was eighteen for all of his identification, and it mostly made him laugh since the photo was eight years old and he was recovering from a sneeze in it, but it still looked like him in a young buzzcut kind of way.

He split from the other newbies and was shown the eating areas and his dormitory next, which quite frankly _sucked_. It was basically military communal style, only they didn’t even get a trunk for item storage. Stacks of three rectangular holes, the bunks, lined three of the walls to make nine beds total. Along the fourth wall was a long table broken into nine sections (a dresser? a desk? Stiles wasn’t sure what the table was supposed to be but there were clothes and random items piled in each space). Eight of the spaces were already taken, so Stiles was left with a top bunk and a cubby space right in the middle of the table. The Crowned Galaxy was at least thirty times bigger than any ship Stiles had worked on so far, and yet it crammed more people into the dorm rooms.

Then finally, the tour was done and Stiles was left to (mostly) his own devices until his meeting with the man Scott had coined “the new guy.” He hit the dining area first and the food wasn’t half bad. The dining area was also a little empty, but it was three pm and Stiles didn’t think that was a normal break time for anyone. 

‘ _all aboard the cooltrain express_ ’ he sent to Scott over his wrist-link, and when Scott didn’t reply he shot off another message. ‘ _ps that means i’m here_ ’.

Still no reply, which was pretty annoying since he was the only person Stiles knew enough to hang out with on the ship so far (outside of _Officer_ Whittemore, who met Stiles and the other newbies once they boarded, but fuck that). Of course, Scott was probably working or sleeping or something. Dual-ship teams were hot shit on ships like The Crowned Galaxy, and rightfully so.

Stiles ended up playing cards in the common room with a group of maintenance workers he’d probably never see again. He said goodbye to them at five when he had to exercise his new pass-codes and go meet the guy who got to decide if he could navigate one of the ship’s thirty-two dual-ships. They were a little peeved, but that was because Stiles was killing hard that round and it always sucked when the winner left before anyone could make the effort to catch up.

The receptionist was nice enough while he waited—she humored his bad attempts at flirting and it turned into a game to see who could come up with the worst pick-up line. She probably won in the end since she had a wide arsenal of ones that had been used on her (she threw back one Stiles had once used in earnest, and ouch, that had hurt a little inside), but Stiles was counting it as a draw since he was in the middle of his “best” one when he was finally called in.

The New Guy, who was also simultaneously dubbed Old Guy Balls, wasn’t that old at all. He was mid-forties at the most and actually pretty hot so Stiles didn’t know what Scott was on. His office was pretty nicely furnished if a little spartan with its single desk, book shelf, and two chairs. 

“I’m Peter,” he said, and he leaned over the desk in an offer to shake Stiles’ hand. 

“Stiles Stilinski,” he returned, and moved closer to grab Peter’s hand tight, but not too tight per his dad’s “how to handshake good” orders. 

“Your parents were certainly...creative,” Peter said and gestured at the chair behind Stiles, which he took. Stiles didn’t have to ask about what he meant; it certainly wasn’t the first time someone had commented on his first name and Peter had his file on the table in front of him. 

“Yeah, I’ve uh, been ‘Stiles’ since I was four or five for obvious reasons.” 

Peter shot him a small smile and let the quiet stand for the appropriate length of time to change topics. “Not that we don’t appreciate your abilities as a navigator, but have you considered becoming a licensed pilot?”

Stiles’ grin drooped. It was always that question. First one right out of the bag and it was _always_ that question. His answer never changed though, not since he was ten years old. “No, I’d like to remain a navigator.” 

Peter shrugged like it was no skin off his back, he was indifferent, and Stiles tamped down the burning in his gut that wanted to question why he asked in the first place. “That’s a shame. You scored higher in the flying part of the simulation than the majority of the pilots we were trying to match you with.” 

That wasn’t any new information. Stiles always tested average at navigation skills and exceptional in piloting whenever he had to take the flight simulation and exam. Occasionally he thought about bombing the pilot portion just so he’d stop being asked if he’d rather pilot, but the higher ups had all his former test scores and he needed _something_ to beef up his portfolio since his compatibility range was shit.

“I do have good news for you though,” Peter continued, and hope rose in Stiles’ chest. He tried to tell himself that it could be anything—they weren’t going to move him to a new ship, or they felt like promoting him, or anything. It probably wasn’t a dual-ship compatibility result. 

“It’s not high enough for this ship in particular, but what they don’t tell you is that your score is something that can be raised with enough practice, and, well, these are special circumstances. You’ve scored a projected five with one of our pilots.”

If Stiles had to hold onto the arms of the chair a little harder than necessary to keep from jumping up and dancing, he was sure no one would judge him. “Holy shit, really?” bubbled out of his mouth, high pitched and full of awe. If it were possible Stiles was sure he’d have rainbows shooting out of his mouth instead because _finally_. After eight years of nothing but subpar ranges, he had finally scored something workable. It was the lowest score any ship would accept for a dual-ship team, but he fucking got it. 

If Peter was at all fazed by Stiles’ language, he didn't show it. If anything he seemed to encourage it, since Peter’s face broke out into a smirk for a second or two before he reeled it back into something more professional.

“Yes. There’s no way you can fly now at the level we expect, so you will continue your job as a dual-ship tech on the flight deck and train with your pilot every other evening, unless stated otherwise, until you’re at an acceptable level.” 

When he was finished, Peter pulled a document seemingly out of nowhere, and slid it towards Stiles in a way that made the paper scritch across the smooth planes of the desk between them. It was a contract detailing the changes in his pay and insurance, among other things, should he choose to sign and become a dual-ship navigator, and Stiles only really half-read it before he picked up one of the black pens littering the surface of the desk and signed his name. He was finally going to be in a dual-ship, sort-of, and hell was that exciting. 

“Excellent,” Peter said. “Your first session will be in three days.”

Awesome. He couldn’t wait to tell Scott, holy hell. 

“Who’s my pilot?” he asked, itching to get out of his seat and sleep until Wednesday or something just to get the next three days over with. Stiles _had_ to meet the person who was cool enough to be his flight partner. 

Peter’s face went through a series of twitches and motions before it finally settled back into the relaxed expression he’d had on earlier. If that wasn’t a bad sign, Stiles didn’t know what was, but he wrote himself off as paranoid because nothing was going to rain on his parade. “I’m contractually obligated to tell you that it’s Derek Hale.” 

Nothing but that, apparently, because Stiles was certainly feeling the droplets. “Contractually obligated...you-” he wheezed out, incredulous. “You didn’t tell me until after I’d already signed the fucking paper!”

Stiles was up and out of his chair before he knew it, fingers clutching the edge of Peter’s desk with more force than Stiles intended, but Peter didn’t flinch. He barely blinked in fact, and Stiles’ fingernails pressed harder into the wood. 

“You didn’t ask until after you signed the contract.” 

Peter tapped the contract on the desk to line up the pages, and every thwack echoed heavily in Stiles’ head. The document was already straight—the movement was just to cement Stiles’ choice in the moment.

Stiles collapsed back into his chair, all the fight draining out of him like someone had stuck a needle in his gut. He was still pretty sure that was not how those things were supposed to work, but what was he going to do? Punch the guy in charge of his job? 

“I didn’t ask…” he groaned to himself and pulled his hands up to thread his fingers through his hair in frustration. His wrist beeped and buzzed against his hair when he did it so either Scott had finally messaged him back or the universe was sending its sympathies. 

“You’re welcome to tear up your contract, but of course it will all go in your record and we’ll have to release you from the ship,” Peter said, and the smirk he shot Stiles practically slapped Stiles in the face.

And what could Stiles do to compete with that? Jesus tap-dancing Christ. “No, that’s okay,” he mumbled into his hands, accepting his fate. “I’ll stay.” 

Great. Awesome. Fucking cool beans. Stiles was the navigator to a known terrorist who was exonerated six years ago due to a lack of evidence. Of course that was who he’d finally be compatible enough to fly with.

* * *

The message was indeed from Scott and said a simple ‘ _!!_ ’ It was the useless kind of thing Scott would send at an inopportune time, but Stiles understood it. They hadn’t seen each other face to face without a screen between them in almost eight years. Not since Scott tested a nine with Isaac and they were whisked away to the grand world that was the epicenter of the war and elite warships. Exclamation points seemed like the only way to precede their meeting.

He itched to tell Scott about how much his life sucked, but hey, he could navigate a dual-ship. ‘ _dude i would let new guy suck my literal not figurative balls,_ ’ came out instead, but Stiles wasn’t sure if he would even do that anymore. Not after Peter withheld information important to Stiles’ safety and being. 

‘ _Stiles I will puke he’s like seventy,_ ’ was the immediate reply and Stiles bit down on a grin. 

Stiles waved at the receptionist on his way out, and she sent back a wink in lieu of a wave since she was typing something. ‘ _no way hes forty-six at the oldest._ ’ 

‘ _wait what’s his name?_ ’ 

Seemed kind of weird that Scott wouldn’t know his own boss’ name, but oh well. He’d oblige. 

‘ _peter._ ’

‘ _dude that’s not new guy Peter’s been here as long as I have,_ ’ Scott sent, and then, ‘ _also that’s still gross Peter is gross._ ’

‘ _did you just picture new guy sucking my balls? or peter?_ ’

‘ _Stiles we’re on the same ship now I will find you and punch you so hard in the dick you’ll have to impregnate girls with your mouth._ ’

‘ _you should do that anyway but without the punching. let’s get dinner._ ’ 

The reply wasn’t immediate, and Stiles should’ve known the response wasn’t going to be what he wanted just based on that. 

‘ _sorry dude! just finished eating with Isaac. maybe tomorrow._ ’ 

Scott’s message left a pit of something he couldn’t identify in his gut. They used to eat every meal together and now it was eight years later and they didn’t, but this was Scott’s ship and his crew and Stiles was just getting his feet on the ground. ‘ _it’s a date! :)_ ’ he sent back after erasing a number of different half-formed messages. 

‘ _:)_ ’ was all he got back in return.

* * *

Sleep came uneasily, evading him like a shy animal he just wanted to cuddle, and Stiles felt like he had only just closed his eyes when his alarm went off. The noises were certainly the same, that was for sure, despite most of the snorers, grunters, and heavy breathers from the night before having gotten up for their shifts at some point during his sleep. At least the farter had run out of gas. He had to count his blessings somewhere. 

The showers were okay. He couldn’t find out the state of their athlete’s foot issue until later, but they seemed clean and the water was hot. The food was okay too. The coffee was well within reach of entrance and that was all that really mattered. 

As soon as he left the bubble of sleepiness and quiet mornings, it became apparent that The Crowned Galaxy never slept. There were people everywhere. People walking, people carrying things, people chatting, people doing their jobs. And where there wasn’t a crowd of people, there was maintenance, men and women in heavy yellow uniforms with their toolboxes and the steady thrum of machinery. The place was living like nothing Stiles had experienced before on all the transport ships he worked on in the inner territory realms. 

Stiles entered the room he was going to spend the majority of his or the ship’s life in, whether as a mechanic or a dual-ship navigator, as if he were discovering the remains of an ancient civilization. The flight room. It stored all the dual-ships and mini-ships, held the machinery for repairing and maintenance of said ships, and boasted the biggest outer-entrance in and out of The Crowned Galaxy, though the steel doors were currently shut tightly. He tried not to gape at the sheer size of it, but Calypso was the biggest ship he had worked on and even it could fit in the room without difficulty. 

“Booty-scooch!” a female voice called out behind him, but uh, what the hell was that supposed to mean? Stiles turned just in time to see a pale girl in a mechanics uniform barely avoid impaling him with the corner of the large metal sheet she was carrying. Her blonde curls spilled out from underneath her backwards uniform cap, teasing the blue tassel hanging off her shoulder. He didn’t have a tassel on his uniform, and he wasn’t completely sure about the system on The Crowned Galaxy, but he figured she must have been a rank above Stiles. 

His mouth dropped open even more in protest at almost being hit, but she shut him up with a sharp roll of her eyes.

“Someone come deal with this newbie,” she said. “I’m busy.” 

“You’re always too busy to deal with the newbies, Erica,” a man crouched under a mini-ship, a smaller ship with only one pilot, said, and Erica scoffed. 

“Yeah, well, tell that to the pilots who can’t keep from clipping something with their Goddamn ship so I’m forced to repair it. I’m busy all the time.” She continued walking somewhere to Stiles’ left, carrying the metal sheet as if it weighed nothing. 

Just as Erica yelled for, someone did indeed come to Stiles’ rescue. Her name was Harley and she was probably the nicest person Stiles had interacted with so far on the ship (other than the man who gave him a cup for his coffee). She actually asked him his name and how he was liking the ship so far before she went to business, and that was refreshing. He didn’t have many dumb newbie questions since he wasn’t a fresh-faced cadet right out of the academy, but he did learn that their flight rooms utilized teams, and small groups of four to ten within that team. The teams were Outgoing, Incoming, Mini-ship Mechanics, Dual-Ship Mechanics, Carriers, Maintenance, and Cargo. The people in each group always worked together, though other groups from the same or different teams could switch in and out depending on how the schedules were designed for the week. As it turned out, Stiles was Dual-Ship Mechanics in a group called “Wolf Pack” and Stiles was totally judging the person who came up with that.

Harley brought him over to a smallish area sectioned off with red tape and filled exclusively with dual-ships (though there were only three at the moment). Surprisingly, Erica was there too with her sheet of metal, though it was partially in pieces by then since she was cutting shapes out of it with a fine-tip laser. 

“You guys have a newbie, Wolf Pack!” Harley said with a grin, and left Stiles open and exposed in front of his new group, who apparently thought “Wolf Pack” was a fantastic sounding name. 

Erica failed to react until the piece she was working on fell out of the main metal sheet frame, and seeing as Stiles only recognized her he didn’t exactly look too hard for anyone else. The metal dropped, she snorted, and then she lifted a pair of heavy-duty black goggles off of her face. Her gaze felt kind of like Stiles was a sick animal being scrutinized by a pack of wolves, so maybe the group name fit right in. 

“I’m Stiles,” he offered, and that only made Erica’s grin turn darker. 

“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Newbie.” 

“It’s, uh, Stiles,” he corrected with a shrug. Like hell was he going to let a name like Newbie stick. 

A tall black man with a friendly smile, also with a blue tassel hanging off his shoulder, stood up from his crouched position next to a ship behind Erica, and rested a hand on her right biceps. Stiles didn’t quite understand the silent exchange they shared in that touch and Erica’s resulting look, but when he pulled away her smile looked nicer and that was good enough for him.

He shot Stiles another friendly smile and reached for a rag hanging over the entry point edge for the pilot in the dual-ship next to him. “What she means to say is that our group primarily works on a nickname basis,” he said as he wiped his hands as clean as he could. “I’m Boyd, but call me Wolfsbane.” 

O...kay then. _Themed_ nicknames. For a group called _Wolf Pack_. No wonder Scott liked The Crowned Galaxy so much. 

There was a streak or two of grease on the hand Boyd offered, despite his rigorous work with the rag, but Stiles shook it anyway—he wasn’t exactly a stranger to dirtiness after working as a mechanic for eight years. 

“And you’re Erica,” he said, sending a short nod to Erica. 

“Mistletoe,” she said.

Ah, okay. So not quite on theme, but still associated with Boyd’s. 

Stiles rocked back on his heels. Boyd and Erica were kind of blindingly beautiful when they stood next to each other. Hell, they were just as good looking apart but together it was like staring at the sun, like they kept reflecting their attractiveness back at each other. 

“Is this all of us? Group Wolf Pack?” 

“Nah, we got one more,” Boyd said as Erica shouted, “Yo, Silver!” 

“I’m a little bit busy right now!” came the answer in a sweet, masculine voice. The guy that the voice belonged to had to be a short, slightly chubby man, Stiles decided. There was no way a voice that sounded like bakeries smelled, all sweet pastries and freshly baked bread, could be anything but. 

“Busy enough not to meet your new Wolf Pack member?” Erica asked.

“Busy enough that the engine will fall out of this ship if I get up to meet our new member, so yeah. I’m a little busy.” 

“Well quit talking to me and finish then!” 

There was a loud clang and a series of grumbles that Stiles didn’t have to hear to know were curses in response to Erica, somewhere over to their collective left, where a green dual-ship in bad need of a new paint job rested on risers. Stiles had to contain a wince at that. _Risers_? On a ship with functioning magnets holding up the majority of the ships in the room? That dual-ship had to be in shitty shape. 

“He tries to act like a hard-ass but the guy is about as threatening as a day old puppy, so don’t let him get to you,” Erica said. All Stiles could picture was a soft, chubby dude with a pouty angry face, so he was pretty sure he had her advice in the bag. It was like trying to get angry at a terrier.

“If he hears you he’ll start sulking,” Boyd said, and he looked like he was debating going back to work while they were waiting on Silver. 

“He’s always sulking,” Erica said, waving him off. “And besides, I’d stop if he’d hurry up and get over here.”

There was another clang and some more muffled cursing coming from the green dual-ship. 

“I think he may have heard you,” Stiles said, and Erica snorted. 

“That was the intent my sweet virgin Newbie.”

“I’m not a—”

“Don’t care,” Erica said with a bored finality and Stiles shut his mouth with a clack. He wasn’t a virgin though, not in any context. He may be new to the ship but that was about it since he had eight years of experience in dual-ship mechanics and he hadn’t been a sexual virgin since he traded a couple of quick handies with his bunkmate in the dormitories of the academy ten or so years ago. 

There was a final, sharp scrape of something against metal over by the green ship and a rustling in Stiles’ peripherals. Silver had gotten up.

“Now that the engine is no longer in danger of falling out, I’m free to get up. It’s funny how that works.”

Holy shit, Bakery-man was not Bakery-man at all. He was pure stubble, wide shoulders, and yes-I-have-a-leather-jacket-to-go-with-this-motorbike-ship; all handsome with short brown hair and hazel eyes. Where’s the beach, if you catch his drift. Silver should’ve been nicknamed gold because there was no way he didn’t get a perfect score with his good looks (unless of course they were saving that nickname for Stiles himself because he’d totally accept that). 

It must have shown on Stiles’ face because Silver sort of shrunk in on himself and his smile turned a little uncomfortable. Erica gave Stiles a sympathetic pat on the arm though so he had a feeling this was a regular occurrence. 

“Stiles,” he said and offered his hand. Silver looked at it, then at his own, and shrugged before taking Stiles’ hand in his own. It wasn’t a particularly confident handshake, but Silver’s hand was warm and callused so Stiles was willing to overlook that. 

“Silver.” 

“I, uh, would rather not be Newbie if that’s okay with all of you.” 

“I had a dog named Scooter, if that’s any better,” Boyd said, his voice coming from underneath them. Apparently he’d decided to go back to work now that the introductions were mostly done. 

“I think it kind of fits you actually,” Erica said.

“Oh God, _no_ ,” Stiles groaned. He resisted the urge to facepalm, but Jesus tap-dancing Christ _no_. It clearly sounded like a dog’s name because no one above the age of ten would have a nickname like that. 

Silver shrugged, and Stiles kept himself from watching those thick shoulders slide upwards, instead focusing his eyes on the red tassel hanging from his shoulder. A rank higher than Erica and Boyd, then. “Pain-in-the-ass would’ve fit better I think, but I’m not against Scooter.” 

“You don’t even know me!”

“I don’t have to. You look like a pain in my ass.” And with that Silver turned back around to the green ship, and whatever retort Stiles was thinking of dried up in his mouth when he saw Silver’s ass. _God_.

He could officially check being awkwardly attracted to his boss off his life to-do list.

* * *

They parked him right in front of a huge rack of dual-ships, taking up the full height and most of the width of one of the walls of the hangar, and told him to make sure everything started and was where it needed to be. It was a fairly easy job, if not a tedious one, but he got to know the Outgoing team member in charge of operating the machine that pulled the ships off the rack and onto the maintenance belt at the bottom pretty well. Boyd was elected to keep an eye on him and he seemed anything but thrilled by that, but Stiles didn’t mess up or anything and everyone needed an easy day every once in awhile. 

Lunch came and passed, and before he knew it the shift bell rang and he was officially off.

“You want to get a nice group-building dinner together?” Erica asked him while they washed their hands off in the long line of sinks just to the side of one of the hangar exit doors. Boyd and Silver were a bit down the line, Boyd chatting with Harley and Silver focusing extra hard on scrubbing grease off his hands. 

Stiles shook his head no. “I’ve got plans with a friend, actually.”

“That’s too bad. A drink after then?” 

They didn’t have work until late the next day; it was doable. Stiles could get as drunk as he wanted and he could socialize the way he’d perfected back in the academy, and hell, maybe he could get Scott to go too. “Sure,” he shrugged. “I don’t know where the bars are on this ship though.” 

“Great! I’ll see if I can get some of our other friends to go too. And just ask your friend. Unless your friend’s in janitorial, everyone knows there’s only one good entertainment sector on this thing.”

Okay. Vague, but okay. The Wolf Pack name and the nicknames were kind of weird, but he could get used to The Crowned Galaxy and the way things worked on her.

* * *

Scott was taller. Not taller than Stiles, but taller than he used to be. His jaw was still just as wonky, but it was manlier. And a bit hairier, and that was probably the weirdest thing about it since Scott had been able to grow maybe seven hairs total on his chin when they were eighteen, and now he had full-on facial hair. The shoulders that Stiles and a few of their other friends had loved to poke fun at had filled out with all of Scott’s new muscle mass, but his hair was the same stylishly short dark brown it had been, if not a tad shorter in the back.

His best friend was officially all grown up, and Stiles had missed eight years of it. 

“You’ve grown your hair out,” was the first thing that came out of Scott’s mouth. Then: “I mean, yeah, I knew that already because it’s not like we didn’t talk at all these past few years, but it’s longer _in real life_. And I can touch it. Can I touch it?” 

Stiles couldn’t help the smile that broke out across his face. “Yeah, buddy, I gotcha. I feel the same way about your soulful Mexican eyes.”

Instead of answering Scott’s question, Stiles tipped his head forward until he headbutted Scott lightly in the chest. Scott’s arms came up immediately to keep him there in a half hug, hands traveling up the back of Stiles neck and into his hair. Scott tugged lightly, carding his fingers gently through the short hairs, and Stiles’ hands came up to grip Scott’s elbows. 

“How does it feel to be able to touch my hair for the first time?” Stiles asked, and the rumbles from Scott’s laughter vibrated against Stiles’ forehead. 

“Feels like the answer to a lot of questions I didn’t know I had.” 

“Stop being deep. You suck at it.” 

“Your mom sucks at it,” was the immediate reply, a conditioned response from the flight academy, and Stiles sunk into Scott’s frame, sliding his arms around to Scott’s back and letting the heat from his back burn against Stiles’ forearms. Scott sighed and let his hands fall off Stiles’ head and on onto his shoulder blades.

Scott was really there, holy hell. 

Eventually, they pulled out of the hug. It took some work and one or both of them kept saying something and yanking the other back to them, but then again they had eight years of body contact to make up for. 

“Where’s Isaac?” Stiles got out when they finally moved enough to pick up trays to set their dinner on. 

Scott shrugged and reached for a pasta dish with some weird looking veggies mixed in. “I’ve been on the verge of tears since you let me touch those new locks and I’m not giving him that kind of ammo.” 

“He’d capitalize on our touching moments?” Stiles asked, his voice high pitched from his faux dramatics.

“Nah, not really. We’ve known each other for years and I’ve seen him cry a bunch of times. I think he might be catching up on sleep or something—to be honest I’m not one hundred percent sure.” 

They reached the end of the dinner line and walked towards one of the smaller tables at the edge of the room. Scott seemed like he knew where he wanted to go, so Stiles followed him to a three-person table off near a corner. 

“So what’s up with you?”

Stiles had two ways to pull this. Start with the Wolf Pack, or with his possible stint as a navigator to a terrorist. One was fairly usual since Scott heard all about Stiles’ dumb crushes when they were teens, and the other was super exciting as well as super horrifying. His choices weren’t that great, so he shoved a french fry or six in his mouth all at once and made noises that sounded vaguely like words. 

Scott didn’t buy it. “Don’t do that trick. I was there when Freddy _taught_ you that trick.” 

Stiles coughed and swallowed his french fry mash down.

“Uh, so guess who wants to bone their new boss?” he offered instead while he swirled his ketchup around with a french fry.

“Oh God, Stiles, I don’t want to hear more about Peter.” 

The french fry nearly flew out of his hand. “No not _Peter_. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, no. It’s this dude in mechanics. Actually all my new coworkers are fucking hot as balls, but no. His name is-” wait Stiles didn’t actually know his name “-his _nickname_ is Silver.” 

Recognition lit up in Scott’s eyes, and Stiles wasn’t sure if he was thrilled or disappointed about that. “Silver. Like eyebrows and stubble, Silver?” 

“I’m not sure there’s anyone else named Silver in mechanics, so I’m going to go with yes.” 

“It’s a big ship, man; anything’s possible. But yeah he does a good job with Charlie Kilo so I approve. Unless he’s an asshole, and then I’ll punch him in the balls.” 

“Oh! You never told me the story behind that name like you said you would.” 

Scott’s grin twitched a little, but Stiles wouldn’t say it faltered, and he quirked his head to the side. “Ah, well you know how a lot the dual-ship teams that work well together get sent out together a lot? Well maybe you don’t know that, but anyway. Me and Isaac would often get sent out with these two other guys, and when we got new ships and stuff they named theirs ‘Foxtrot Uniform’. We were Charlie Kilo, so when we went out together it spelled ‘FUCK’. We thought we were such clever little shits, and I’m still a little disappointed we couldn’t get the girls on our other side to rename their ship Mike Echo. They liked Whiskey Romeo too much.” 

“Will I get to see the FUCK team?” Stiles asked with a grin and took a bite of his burger. 

Scott shook his head no. “Those guys never made it out of the Greenmile mission a few years back.” He paused for a bite of pasta, and Stiles was such a considerate friend he didn’t even complain when Scott continued to talk with food in his mouth. “I think an old piece of Foxtrot’s frame ended up in Super Ace though so the FUCK team still flies in spirit.”

Half-chewed food flew _in spirit_ out of Scott’s mouth, and Stiles didn’t bother to contain his grimace.

“Oh gross. I think you just spewed food in my Gatorade.” 

“Just filter it with your mouth or get a new one.”

Scott looked largely unconcerned about the bits of partially chewed pasta floating in Stiles’ drink and that was a problem, but mostly because he didn’t set up a chance for Stiles to use the term ‘Haterade.’ 

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Yeah,” he shrugged, not even bothering to defend himself. But then again Stiles had known the guy for most his life so it wasn’t like he had much of an argument otherwise. “Well there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

They put a mutual temporary pause in their conversation so Scott could finish his pasta and Stiles could get a new drink. 

“Did you get asked _the question_?” Scott asked when he got back to the table, and Stiles set his drink down carefully. 

“Like if I wanted a cup? It’s self serve dude.” 

“No. The pilot question.”

Oh. That one. 

Stiles slowly sat back down in his seat to contemplate his choices. In the end he went with a simple “Yeah.” 

Scott’s face went all soft, and if Stiles hadn’t been reaching for his burger he bet Scott would’ve reached for his hand. His discomfort was probably projecting all over the place, but Scott wouldn’t know that it wasn’t just annoyance at being asked if he’d consider being a pilot again.

“That sucks dude. How did the compatibility ratings go?” 

Stiles’ hands squeezed so tightly around his burger that a ketchup-covered pickle popped out of the top and landed across his bite marks, even though Stiles was well aware that the conversation was going to go that direction. “I got a five—”

“That’s great, dude!”

“—so I’m going to be training with the guy until we can get it up to an eight for this ship’s elite standard, but it’s uh-” Stiles glanced around the table and pulled in closer to Scott “-you can’t tell anyone okay?”

Scott nodded his head vigorously and did the lock-your-mouth-and-throw-away-the-key gesture. Stiles could trust him. He had kept the time Stiles broke Coach Finstock’s window a secret, as well as the time he accidentally turned the entire flight academy’s socks pink (okay that wasn’t an accident but Scott didn’t know that part of it). 

“I just want to say that I signed the contract before I knew who my pilot was, okay? But he’s, uh-” Stiles lowered his voice and Scott leant in closer “-Derek Hale.” 

Scott reared back and man did Stiles know that feeling.

“Dere-!” he shouted before he threw a hand across his face and pinched his lips shut. “Derek Hale?” he tried again, whispering harshly, and Stiles was willing to bet he had Scott spittle in his fresh cup of Gatorade now. 

“I know. Do you know what he looks like? Who he is? Because I can’t believe he’d get a job anywhere after, _you know_.” 

“No. I...It’s a big ship. Do you think he’s been on the ship for long?” 

“Scott, how in the world would I know that?” 

“I dunno, but _you’re_ the one who’s partners with a _terrorist_.”

Stiles’ voice went high pitched. “Yes but I already told you I didn’t know that until _after_ I signed the contract so can we please stop talking about this now?” 

Scott sighed and busied himself with stacking his empty plates on his tray. “Yeah, I’m sorry dude. That’s a shitty way to break your three streak, but okay. Tell me about this new boss of yours or whatever.” 

And he did. Stiles didn’t exactly have much info on him except for the way his body looked, but he leapt at the chance to change the subject. The conversation mostly ended up being on the subject of coworkers, the easy sort of chatter that left Stiles boneless and happy in Scott’s company. He mentioned going out for drinks with the rest of Wolf Pack, and Scott knew where the bars were (“near the viewing deck, duh.” whatever that was) so he had no issue getting there. Besides, Scott wanted to show him something up there.

* * *

“Have you seen the edge yet?” Scott said. He was leaning against the mirrored elevator wall closest to the buttons with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a know-it-all smirk Stiles would’ve liked to punch off. The very picture of relaxed, despite the fact that he was talking about the the _edge_ , aka, the figurative divide between the front lines of their ships and the Zurek ships. 

“Yeah man, they did this thing called opening the exterior doors to let ships into the hangar and I happen to work in a section of the hangar.”

It looked like a bunch of clouds with ships speckled here and there, and with what looked like farmlands below them. In other words, not particularly exciting.

Scott rolled his eyes, and if anything his smirk grew bigger. He was rather used to Stiles’ sarcasm. “No, man. The _edge_. You saw what it’s like below the clouds. The viewing deck is at the top of the ship _above the clouds_.” 

_Ding_.

The gears in the elevator stopped moving and it came to a stop. Top floor. 

When the doors opened, Stiles lost his breath. With every inhale came quiet stillness and fear of the unknown; with every exhale he lost a piece of his soul. It was unsettling.

The viewing room was a glass bubble at the top of The Crowned Galaxy, sticking just over the top of the clouds in the area. As late as it was, directly above his head was a dark circle of outer space with the stars shining through, then the sunset’s colors fell around the bubble in a wash of twilight, reflecting off the shapes and sending colored shadows across the cloud layer. It was like he had entered another world.

That wasn’t the most amazing part of it though. 

The ships were. Everywhere the eye could see there were ships, mid-sized, transports, cargo, elite warships—ships off all sizes and ages. Some of them were probably older than the war itself, older than Stiles even. Beyond that, a strip of nothingness defined by the lines ships weren’t willing to cross. Then the Zurek ships of all sizes and shapes, their strange colors a sharp contrast to the beauty surrounding it. 

It was death and life in the same picture. It was the edge, and Stiles felt like he was going to fall clear off into the unknown.

Stiles walked to the center of the room without realizing he’d done it, only finding out he had when Scott’s warm hand on his shoulder woke him from his daze. 

“How have you survived this long?” Stiles asked. Last time he had seen more than a handful of Zurek ships he was trying not to die, but Scott and The Crowned Galaxy were nothing but a living, breathing machine. Here there had to be twenty times as many as when Calypso fell.

Scott laughed an airy thing and removed his hand from Stiles’ shoulder to point at a giant Zurek ship to their right. “Same reason that thing has. We’re giants here, the untouchable. The war probably won’t end until one of us is gone, but for now we’re invincible.”

“Oh,” Stiles breathed. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. For Scott, the edge was a symbol of their Godliness, but for Stiles, it reminded him of nothing but his own mortality. 

Scott slapped him lightly on the back, grinning, and Stiles stumbled forward a step, his eyes finally pulling away from the scene before him. The people in the viewing room weren’t even looking at it, just sort of sitting around chatting or playing cards like it was something normal. Stiles wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel that way. 

“C’mon,” Scott said. “Your coworkers are probably waiting for you.”

Scott physically turned him away and pushed him towards the elevator doors a little harder than necessary, but Stiles’ legs felt like they had frozen solid. His breath didn’t become steady until Scott keyed in the floor below them and the doors shut behind him. 

“You should come too. Meet my coworkers and maybe Hot-boss.” 

Scott resumed the relaxed position he’d had against the wall on the way up. “I can’t actually drink, though. Ship teams are required to be on call at all times in case of an attack.” 

“For a little while. Please.” 

“Alright. Just a bit.” 

_Ding._

* * *

Harley was already a little tipsy when Stiles walked into the bar with Scott in tow. She demanded a hug almost right off the bat, and even though she was still in her work clothes and likely had grease or something on them, Stiles hugged her anyway. 

To be honest he thought Erica would be the tipsy one, but she was sitting calm and cool at a table just off of the bar in a blue corset get-up. 

“Point out Hot-boss to me,” Scott whispered into his ear. “And Wolfsbane and Mistletoe.” 

Silver was chatting with the bartender at the end of the bar, stealing looks at Stiles and Scott out of the corner of his eye, and Erica and Boyd were both at the same table, grinning in their unique ways at the two of them. Stiles said as much to Scott, who mumbled something about Stiles needing to up his attractiveness to fit in with Wolf Pack, the ass. 

“So who is this?” Erica said in lieu of a greeting, and Stiles rolled his eyes when Scott reached down and kissed the back of her hand. Clearly he had gotten cornier since joining the crew of The Crowned Galaxy. 

“Scott,” Stiles said, and he plopped himself down across from Boyd. 

Boyd and Erica both introduced themselves as Wolfsbane and Mistletoe to Scott, so apparently the nickname thing wasn’t just a Wolf Pack exclusive thing. Which obviously lead to Scott asking about Stiles’ nickname, and hell if he was going to deal with being called Scooter, or Scott’s version “Scooter-butt,” sober. 

“I’m going to grab a drink,” Stiles said as he stood up. “Anyone want me to get them something?” 

Scott waved him off, but Stiles knew he wasn’t drinking anything so that wasn’t really a surprise. He could’ve asked for Stiles to get him a soda or something though. Boyd asked for a Stella, and surprisingly, Erica waved him off too even though her glass was completely empty. “I don’t drink,” she said when he made a face. That was weird though. Why invite him for drinks when she didn’t drink?

Stiles ordered himself a shot right off the bat, then got a beer for himself after that had gone down. Boyd accepted his drink with a quick salute, and Stiles grinned wide, the atmosphere and knowledge that he’d just downed a shot doing more for him than the shot at that point in time. Erica and Scott were talking about ships, though it mostly sounded like Erica was reprimanding him for all the things he’d (probably) done and made her fix. 

“So you guys want to tell me why I’m the only basic ranked person in Wolf Pack?” 

Erica shrugged and rolled her empty glass between her palms. “Ask management. Though me and Wolfsbane are the same rank as you.”

“Does that mean I’m getting a fancy blue tassel for my shoulder too?” 

Boyd laughed, a wide open-mouthed thing that startled Stiles into a drink of his beer. “Not unless you’ve got something special up your sleeves. We’ve got tassels because I’m also licensed in radio and sounds, and Erica can essentially build entire ships from the ground up.”

It said something about how disorganized their forces were when Stiles had no idea how the ranking system worked on The Crowned Galaxy, or how Erica and Boyd weren’t even surprised that he asked, but Stiles didn’t care to analyze it. After sixteen years of fighting he was ready to just accept it.

“Well I’m a licensed navigator!” 

Erica raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but Scott interrupted her. “Yes, but your compatibility scores suck,” he said with an exaggerated laugh and jostled Stiles’ shoulder, spilling his drink. 

“Hey,” Stiles whined, the extra y’s audible in his voice. His drink was empty, and it couldn’t be empty, so he grabbed another. Then bought something for Silver since he looked so uptight in the back. He wasn’t even talking to the bartender anymore, just biting his lip and tracing the wood grain patterns in the bartop with his index finger. What an antisocial dummy.

When he made it back to the table, Scott excused himself and they exchanged hugs before he took off completely, which kind of sucked. Stiles was hoping he’d get to hang at least a little bit more. It couldn’t have been awkwardness that made Scott leave because Scott could make friends with a fucking rock, so it was entirely the elite pilot thing. 

Stiles downed his drink. Man. If he couldn’t drink like that as a navi, why the hell did he want to be one in the first place? It seemed stupid now.

He got on the topic of dumb TV shows with Erica, Boyd, and some guy named Ethan. Or Aiden. He may have been twins but Stiles’ brain couldn’t keep up with more than one of him so he wasn’t sure. 

Erica had been fueling him with drinks she’d always wanted to try and he’d rate them (though to be honest he couldn’t tell the difference between the last three and he was pretty positive she’d been ordering things with no alcohol content for a while, which made her a poopy friend), so when Erica was trying to convince Stiles that Boyd was totally into that new reality show about dancing celebrities, all Stiles could think about was how great it would be to dance. Right there. 

It wasn’t that kind of bar, but Erica humored him and followed him to ‘the dance floor’ to keep him from stumbling into people, chairs, or once, a person lining up a shot at a pool table. She was so nice, and he told her so. 

“You bet I am, now let’s get you some water before you start sweating alcohol.” 

“You can’t do that,” he said, because he definitely couldn't. He’d be dead before then because it was _impossible_ , duh. But Erica only rolled her eyes and guided him to sit at the seat next to Silver so she could watch him and grab him a water at the same time. 

He was turned towards and talking softly to a brown haired girl Stiles could only kind of see on the seat on the other side of him. It left a weird rock in the pit of the stomach, but it didn’t feel like he was going to throw up so Stiles ignored it. Silver’s back was big and his worn grey t-shirt was so soft looking, and before he knew it Stiles had a palm pressed flat against the middle of it. 

“Problem?” Silver asked, and when Stiles’ eyes traveled up to look Silver had turned to look at him over his shoulder, his eyebrows high on his forehead and the corners of his eyes pinched tight. The heat searing Stiles’ hand turned room temperature as his touch equalized between them, and Stiles shifted his hand to find a different patch of back, a _warm_ patch of back. 

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Your back.” 

“My back?” Silver said dryly, and the girl on the other side of him snickered. Stiles decided he didn’t really like her. Or Silver, since he liked her enough to talk to her but didn’t talk to Stiles the whole night.

“You know for it being my welcome night and all, you’re doing a pretty crappy job at being welcoming.” Silver looked almost apologetic, and Stiles was totally going to forgive him, but then the girl burst into full-blown laughter and wow, Stiles could not forgive anyone who talked to someone that laughed when he was being sincere. 

“Cora, cut it,” Silver mumbled, and the girl, Cora apparently, leaned forward to whisper a couple of exaggerated ha-ha’s into Silver’s ear before she stood up and walked towards Boyd. 

Okay maybe he could still forgive Silver, not that he remembered what for, but he had a lot of strikes on his portfolio so far so Stiles could probably come up with one on the spot. Except, he caught sight of not one, but _two_ drinks in front of Silver, and one definitely looked a lot like the drink Stiles ordered him, only warm and with a sizeable condensation ring on the coaster it rested on. 

“God, you’re ungrateful,” Stiles said, and Silver looked confused for a moment until he caught where Stiles was looking. He shrunk in his seat a little and looked like he was about to make an excuse like maybe that he was already nursing something when his eyes lit up, his lips pulled into a smirk, and he seemed to realize that _Stiles_ bought the drink. 

“I don’t drink shitty beer,” he said smugly, and Stiles hit him with the hand he left on his back, too softly to be effective though. 

“That’s blasphemous, man. You can’t—you can’t _insult_ generations of Stilinskis like that.” In reality his dad was more of a whiskey kind of guy, and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he knew what his grandpa drank, but it sounded good.

Silver raised an eyebrow at that and turned fully towards Stiles, dislodging Stiles’ hand from his back. Forgiveness was totally forgotten, Silver was asking for a fight. A big one that involved Stiles’ fist in his face. Or his knee in his crotch or something. Something that would hurt. 

But before Stiles could really do anything, Erica was back at his side with a glass of water in tow and steering him back towards the table to sit with Boyd. Eden or Aiden or Ethan or whatever was long gone. 

“When did Scott leave?” he found himself asking a few minutes later, when his water was nearly drained. Or maybe more. There were a lot of glasses on the table.

“A while ago, aka before you started, and I quote, ‘shaking what your mama gave you’,” Boyd answered, and whoa when did Erica join Silver at the bar? She was right there talking about dolphins fucking their nose holes with Stiles like, two blinks ago. Alert the press, Stiles figured out the Flash’s new identity.

He may have lost track of his drinks, but that was okay. Boyd was nice and his pecs were nice and tall people with nice pecs were just really...nice. 

“Fascinating,” Boyd said and his voice vibrated against Stiles’ cheek. _Nice._

* * *

Judging by the way his mouth tasted and felt when he woke up, he must have made out with Oscar the Grouch last night. There was no other way he could see having a mouth that both felt fuzzy and tasted like he licked the inside of a trashcan. 

The lights above him pierced sharply through his eyelids, and when he tried to burrow deeper into his pillow to avoid them, his cheek met nothing but slightly damp, cold, hard ground. In fact, his entire body was trying to curl into the floor. 

He blearily opened his eyes and nearly groaned with the lights fed straight into his pounding headache. “Fuck,” he mumbled, and he pressed his palms against his eyes in some misguided hope that it would help.

“Hangover?” Boyd’s voice asked somewhere above him, and when Stiles braved removing his palms he saw Boyd’s head sticking out of what appeared to be Stiles’ bed. On the third bunk. Which meant that Stiles was on the…

“Jesus, the _floor_ , Wolfsbane?” he cried out, and then clutched his head when the vibrations from his voice shot straight up to it. 

Boyd shrugged unapologetically and climbed down to Stiles’ level. “Next time _you_ try and carry your drunk ass to the top bunk.” 

Boyd had at least given him a blanket, but fuck. A bed would’ve been great, or hell, a pillow at the very least. 

“C’mon, let’s get you to the showers,” Boyd said, offering his hand to Stiles, which he gladly grasped. “You going to puke?” he added when Stiles nearly keeled over after Boyd pulled him up. 

He wasn’t, but it was certainly a close one and Stiles had to take multiple breaths just to say so. 

“Why do I even need to get up?” he asked when they reached the showers and Boyd left him to do his gut-calming breaths and remove his shirt. 

Boyd turned on his showerhead and shrugged under the spray, the droplets ricocheting across his section of the communal showers. “We’ve got work in a few.” 

Stiles nearly dropped his shirt. “But I thought we weren’t scheduled for anything?” That was the whole reason he’d decided to get tanked in the name of socialization.

“We aren’t, but we’re also required to go in when a ship gets back from a mission, and Whiskey Romeo has a predicted arrival for eight-fifty am.” 

Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Okay. Here went battling a hangover on his second day of work. 

They showered, dressed, and went to breakfast, where Boyd continued to be his angel self and snagged Stiles a couple painkillers to go with his eggs and coffee. 

When Stiles went to turn down the hallway leading to the hangar, Boyd grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. 

“Where are you headed?” he asked, and Stiles shot him a confused look. 

“To the hangar…? Where are _you_ going?”

“To the hangar where Whiskey Romeo is actually going to land. You didn’t think the big one was the only hangar in a ship this size, did you? We’d be slaughtered alive up in the edge.” 

He did, but in his defense he had only worked on smaller ships before, and when the new _big_ ship shoved nine people in a tiny room as a living space Stiles didn’t have much imagination for anything else.

As it turned out, there were eleven hangars total and the big one held the creative title of “Hangar One.” They were going to Hanger Six, a little hole in the wall type not easily seen from outside. It was apparently Erica’s favorite, according to Boyd, and she had a dual-ship she was building out of scraps in one of the far corners of the room. 

“Nice of you boys to show up!” Erica said, clipboard in hand, and following her was Silver. He looked a lot like Stiles felt, and if Stiles were a lesser man he would totally accidentally cause loud noises to happen in Silver’s general vicinity. Or rather, if Stiles wasn’t also completely hungover. 

“We didn’t have much hope that you’d make the landing,” Silver said, staring pointedly at Stiles. 

“Hey, hey. My _boss_ never informed me that I may have to come in on days I wasn’t scheduled for.”

Silver only rolled his eyes and strolled back over to the console with the exterior door opening mechanism like it was the last thing he wanted to do, but then again that thing was loud when it got moving. 

Eventually, at eight-fifty am on the dot, the incoming sirens blared twice before a female voice came over the speakers. 

“This is Whiskey Romeo. Requesting to board.” She sounded exhausted, but happy, so it had probably been a mission well done. 

The man standing at the console by Silver pressed a button on the side of a nearby podium and said, “Whiskey Romeo, this is Hangar Six. Prepare to board.” 

Silver pulled a lever between them and the doors began to pull back with a couple of loud clangs before easing into a steady mechanical pull reminiscent of the first hill in a roller coaster ride. When the doors pulled back fully, bright sunlight filtered in behind a small red dual-ship hovering in the center of the space. 

“Incoming,” the female voice said, and a few seconds later the dual-ship started slowly moving into the hangar. The main wings slid into the body of the ship with a quick metallic scrape, and the thrusters turned off to allow the magnets in the bottom of the ship to do their magic. When all was said and done, the ship hovered in a magnetic field about a meter off the hangar floor. 

Boyd was over in a few seconds with a four-foot step stool that he placed next to the pilot’s entry/exit hole, and Stiles was quick to grab the second stool for the navigator, who gave him a quick nod in thanks when the stool officially hit the ground. 

The pilot removed her green flight suit helmet, her face flushed and her dark brown hair pulled in a sloppy bun atop her head underneath it, before she climbed up and out of the ship. The navigator was in a fashionable pink flight suit, which was strange since teams usually wore the same outfit, but if they were the same Whiskey Romeo from Scott’s story, they had been on The Crowned Galaxy for years. 

“Welcome back,” Erica said immediately, like it was practiced. “How was your flight?” 

The pilot set her helmet under her arm and let out a tired grin framed by dimples. “Very good, thank you.” 

The navigator waited until she was down from the step stool to take off her helmet, and when she did a cascade of bright red curls fell against her shoulders. If anyone could make flying seem like the easiest thing, Stiles would bet it was that navigator. She hardly looked mussed when even her pilot was starting to show the effects of a long mission. 

The pair left almost immediately, the sway of their hips and their stride lengths in unison, and Stiles had no doubt that was a team with high compatibility. A nine at least, but Stiles would bet on them being the owners of a perfect 10, and not even Scott and Isaac had managed that with their eight years of flying together.

“So what are we doing now?” Stiles asked, and before he had finished the question Erica had placed a clipboard in his hands. 

“Basic maintenance. We see if anything’s broken, and if there is we determine if it can be fixed within three days. If not, we pull out the replacement Whiskey Romeo ship and this one goes to the storeroom to be fixed later, or taken to the chop shop, depending on the extent of the damage.” 

“I think we’ve only had to pull out a replacement for Whiskey Romeo once in the years I’ve been here, but Silver’s been here longer than I have so he’d know better,” Boyd said. 

Silver’s head lifted when he heard his nickname, but when he realized what they were talking about he turned back to his own clipboard. “No, just the one as far as I know,” he said almost absentmindedly. 

After all the checks, Whiskey Romeo was determined to be in good shape and was sent to Hangar One to be with the rest of the ships.

* * *

**Compatibility 5**

* * *

The hours ticking until his first meeting with his pilot passed by quickly with an accompanying sense of nervous dread. Silver was grumpier than Stiles had seen him so far, and Stiles hadn’t thought that was possible, but Erica and Boyd didn’t seem concerned that Stiles was on the receiving end of at least ten glares per hour. He had only dropped the toolbox _once_ so the whole thing was sort of annoying and tense on top of his impending doom via Derek Hale. Lunch was almost worse since Boyd and Erica went off to eat with a mutual friend on the Cargo team named Cora without inviting Stiles, and someone had neglected to tell Silver. So he came over to what Stiles was beginning to understand as Wolf Pack’s usual spot, and nearly fell over himself rearing backwards because apparently he didn’t want to eat with Stiles. Silver recovered quickly though, if you could call sitting down and scarfing down his lunch in a minute and a half flat recovering. 

But then his shift was up, Wolf Pack had finished repairs on three dual-ships, and Stiles had two hours until his meeting with Peter, Hale, and the simulation expert in the entertainment hallway just under the viewing room. The message containing their meeting place had come in on his wrist-link a little after lunch, and Stiles wasn’t sure he could accurately recall the two hours of work following it. 

Or the three after work for that matter, except that it contained a panicked forty-five second voicemail of Scott telling Stiles that it was taco night and he needed help convincing Isaac to order pizza.

Derek Hale, or who Stiles assumed was Derek Hale, was already in the simulation room when he got there, zipped into a form-fitting dark grey and black flight suit. For all Stiles had been building the first contact moment in his head, the reality of the scene was disappointing. There Stiles was in his usual casual clothes of jeans and a graphic t-shirt with a flannel pulled over it, when Hale was completely covered head to toe in something they didn’t even need to wear until they went out in a ship for real. 

Hale might have been looking at Stiles, or might’ve not. All Stiles could really figure from the sleek, dark helmet that Hale wore over his head was that he probably had a head, and that he was looking in the general direction of Stiles, or the door he had just walked through at least. As frustrating as it was to not have a face to the name he’d been hearing about for years, it was maybe for the best. A guy as ugly on the inside as Hale, had to be auto-blindness levels of disgusting on the outside, even if he did have a nice body from what Stiles could see from his flight suit clothed shape.

Hale made no movement that could be taken as acknowledgement, and Stiles wasn’t going to be the first, so Stiles shoved his hands deep into his pockets and turned towards the communications expert. She was a dark chubby woman wearing a fashionable top with yoga pants, high heels, and a wide, friendly smile. It probably wasn’t the first time she’d had to check dual-ship compatibility levels, though Stiles doubted she’d ever had to test an exonerated terrorist. 

She had them get in their positions in a thing that very closely resembled a garbage can on is side, and Stiles was surprised when he didn’t find trash in one of the two holes that had been cut out for the pilot and navigator. It was a cramped space, but to be honest was pretty accurate to any ship Stiles had been in. Hale looked more uncomfortable than he did, but his shoulders were practically the size of Stiles’ entire body, so Hale looked like an elephant trying to squeeze into a clown car. 

They were going to run through the flight simulation three times. The first two times were usually discarded as general attempts since the predicted compatibility number was a prediction on eventual compatibility rather than anything expected while they were still fresh faced and nervous. Stiles was mostly excited to get to try out running a dual sim for the first time, since as much as he’d played with the academy’s AI, it didn’t count as a dual sim unless both members were living, breathing human beings. Derek Hale was unfortunately still living, unlike the thousands of people he’d killed, but on the bright side, he was the reason Stiles got to try out a dual sim. 

“You guys ready?” the flight simulation expert asked.

Stiles gave her a thumbs up and Hale nodded in a quick, jerky motion that shook their pseudo ship. 

The silvery surface of the surrounding floors and walls turned to a light blue sky dotted with fluffy little clouds, and the simulation expert disappeared. It was go time. 

“Systems engage,” Hale said, and it was low and distorted like he was using a program to disguise his voice. Someone was going through a little too much trouble to hide their identity, that was for sure. 

Stiles pressed a small red button underneath his plethora of radars and screens, and echoed the phrase after he took the time to roll his eyes at the back of Hale’s head, and the ship shot forward. 

“Might want to ease off the gas pedal, yeah?” Stiles said, but as the words came out of his mouth, the ship was already slowing down to a reasonable pace. 

“It’s the simulation standard, but oh wait, that’s right. You’ve never flown in tandem with a pilot to find that out.” 

“Ring ahead, ten o’clock,” Stiles bit out in lieu of a comeback, and Hale adjusted. What a fucker. 

The first section of the simulation was apparently the ring game. Stiles would read the radar and get their bearings on the rings, relay the information to Hale, and Hale would fly towards them. Every once in awhile there’d be an obstacle like thunderstorms or magnetic fuzz messing up Stiles’ controls and he’d have to calculate where the rings were without using his radar, or physical obstacles like Zurek ships or falling debris and Hale would have to shoot them with his laser pulses, or if they were bigger, Stiles with the missiles. 

Hale’s handling was shaky at best for the entire thing, like he couldn’t quite get complete control of the ship out of discomfort, and that was complete bullshit. That was kid stuff and Stiles couldn’t handle being Hale’s navigator if it was a regular occurance. If he was having terrorist PTSD or whatever and couldn’t help but remember dropping bombs on all those innocent people, or God forbid, couldn’t help but feel the impulse to do so, that was his fucking problem.

The second portion was the one Stiles always found the most boring in single player sims, and he was completely unsurprised to find out he felt the same about it in dual-sims too. It was a race game of sorts, where they’d have to make it to a defined zone within a certain amount of time. Stiles got to plot the course as they went, but mostly it was a pilot-gets-to-go-really-fast-and-avoid-obstacles kind of thing. 

Hale was...passable. Stiles had to use one of their missiles once when he failed to dodge a boulder, but other than that he did alright. A little slow for Stiles’ tastes, but they made it in one piece and within the given time limit. 

The third and final portion of the simulation had them thrown in the midst of a battle with constantly changing random mission specs coming in from HQ. It was a hectic mess and Stiles was sure they accidentally friendly fired at least once, and Stiles himself directed them to the wrong ship, but they finished that test with a passable score. 

All in all for a first go it went fine, Stiles supposed. 

The actual score on the other hand was a three-point-two, and Stiles could help but wince when he heard it, but the simulations expert didn’t seem concerned. She let them take a quick five minute break for bathrooms and water, then they were back in the garbage can and the simulation started up again. 

By the end of their third run they had a perfect five-point-oh.

* * *

Stiles was in the middle of working on the magnetics system of a ship when he got a wrist-link message from Scott. He would’ve ignored it until lunch if he could, but Stiles was weak, so weak to temptation. Knowing Scott it was probably something dumb he observed, or about Isaac, but it was there and blinking and Stiles needed to know about the goldfish tattoo pilot number x had on her butt, or whatever it was Scott had decided to tell him. 

Boyd was waist deep in the navigation seat of the ship he was working on so Stiles didn’t have to dodge him, though he wasn’t sure Boyd would tattle on him anyway. Erica would definitely demand to see what he was looking at in her curious, but insistent way if she saw him, but her back was to him on the other side of Boyd so he didn’t think that would be an issue either. The problem lay with Silver, who was replacing the exhaust system in the back of the very ship Stiles was working on too. Stiles could duck into the pilot’s hole real quick to check it, but it was impossible to get to the magnet system through there without stripping out the flight controls, and Silver was probably well aware of that so it wouldn’t work as a cover. 

He ended up “dropping” a wrench in the seat with a few dramatics Silver could see right through if his eyes were open at all, but he was quick in releasing the lock on his wrist-link to see Scott’s message so maybe it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. 

It was a mistake. ‘ _you need to call your dad :(_ ’ it read, and one frowny face could mean anything in Scott speak. Multiples meant he was really sad as a definite, but one could mean anything from “shit I don’t have time” to “this really isn’t that sad” to “I’m so sad I couldn’t make my fingers type another key.” And coupled with a message expressing worry over his dad? Guaranteed to make Stiles lose his shit. 

“Jesus,” he breathed, and he went sort of slack against the side of the ship. 

“You find everything okay?” Silver asked, sticking his head out from the end of the ship to give Stiles an I’m-not-buying-that look. 

Stiles’ hand came up to his head to scratch at his hair, and it probably got grease everywhere but he didn’t care. “Yeah...I’m just a little…” Stiles trailed off and let his hand fall back into the ship. 

Silver snorted softly but didn’t say anything more until his head was back behind the ship and out of Stiles’ view again. 

“Lunch is in half an hour,” he reminded gently, but it wasn’t in a condescending way or anything. Which meant that every little panicked feeling running through Stiles’ head was probably showing on his face. _Awesome._

The half hour passed by slowly, and for all that Stiles got done he might as well have stopped the moment he got Scott’s message. He could tell it was frustrating Silver; every time Stiles zoned out or dropped something, Silver would open his mouth like he was going to yell, then snap it shut with a sharp clip of his teeth. 

Then finally, it was lunch break. Stiles stood up the moment the bell went off, despite the fact that he probably should have finished hooking the copper wire he was messing with back to where it needed to be first. 

Silver was next to him in an instant, wiping his hands off mechanically with a mostly dirty rag. “What do you need?” he asked evenly, and his eyes met Stiles’ for a second or two before they darted back to his hands. Jesus, his stare was so hard it could probably set the rag on fire just by the force of his will.

“Just a com-screen, probably,” he said with a forced shrug. He was missing a lot of information and his brain was darting back and forth with possibilities, and then solutions and problems to each of those possibilities. 

“Okay.” The rag was tossed behind him as if he didn’t care, but it fell neatly next to the toolbox so he had to have practiced the move in his spare time, and with a jerk of his shoulders Silver started walking towards the back corner of the hangar. 

It took a second or two, but Stiles eventually realized the weird shoulder movement was a follow-me gesture, and Stiles sort of hopped a few times to catch up. Silver was walking pretty fast so catching up didn’t really happen, but he was close. Ish. At least his back was nice to stare at.

On his way over he caught Harley’s eye, and she winked at him and did a motion that could only be described as a pelvic thrust, he thought. Her coworkers caught on too and weren’t doing much different. Okay then. 

Silver lead him to a door, and for all the ignoring he did towards Stiles on the way there, he held the door open and everything before stepping inside. It was a simple room, maybe three-by-three meters big, and dark with its single light on the ceiling, with a comscreen on a large table against the far wall.

“It should work,” Silver said, nodding towards the screen with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched over tight. He looked...uncomfortable. Like someone had put itching powder in his underwear before a big day and he didn’t want to scratch his balls in front of his in-laws. 

His gaze turned hard when he noticed Stiles staring at him. “What,” he grunted out, and his shoulders came up higher. 

“Nothing...” Stiles said, and his eyes brushed over the comscreen. It looked nicer than the ones Stiles had had to use on his former ships, like Calypso, and _Jesus_ he couldn’t call his dad right then. What if it _was_ something bad? When his curiosity didn’t beat the shit out of it, Stiles loved ignorance. Why deal with problems when he could just pretend they never existed, or better yet, not know them in the first place? “Just wondering what the looks a couple people gave me on the way in here were about,” he finished, his eyes turned back towards Silver.

Silver’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, and Stiles bit down on a smile. 

“Generally when two people come in here the table starts banging against the wall,” Silver forced out between his teeth, like the words were actually hurting him.

That was what made Silver so uncomfortable? Potentially being accused of having sex at work? Stiles made jokes about being a straight up eleven, but no one would actually believe an actual eleven like Silver, especially with how serious about work Silver was, would ever slip off to bone someone like Stiles at lunch. That and they were going to be in there together maybe three minutes at most, and they would’ve had to have had boners hard enough to impale someone walking in to get off that fast.

“Oh, kinky. How do you think they’d react if I—” Stiles pushed the table hard into the wall before he finished his sentence. Sure enough, a resonant clang filled the room and the table bounced right back to its original position. The comscreen barely even moved, so clearly whoever designed the room knew exactly what its extra purposes were going to be.

Silver looked like he was going to burst into flames, out of embarrassment or anger Stiles couldn’t tell. The guy’s fists were clenched in his pockets and his shoulders were raised so high Stiles thought his head was going to disappear in his torso.

Stiles’ grin turned darker, and Silver’s eyes widened. There was a reason people stopped telling Stiles secrets back in the flight academy. Scott was the exception usually, but even he didn’t escape Stiles’ jackass teasing.

It didn’t take a whole lot of brain cells to figure out what Stiles was going to do next, that was for sure. His hand had barely touched the table again before Silver’s was crushing it against the surface, most of the movement going downwards rather than over so it didn’t swing into the wall. 

“Stiles, don’t,” he said, eyes glaring hard at the side of Stiles’ face. 

“Shocked you right out of using the nickname, huh?” 

Silver’s hand clenched harder around Stiles’, a thick callused heat, and Stiles subconsciously relaxed under it. He could tell the moment Silver realized where his hand was. Tension rolled into his body in waves, starting with his eyes open in mild horror, sliding down to his flushed cheeks, then his neck, and so on until Silver was one tense ball. And as if he had touched a hot stove, the tension exploded and Silver jerked back against the far wall.

“You don’t need me here anymore, right _Scooter_?” Silver said, and before Stiles had the chance to answer Silver was out of the room and the door was slamming shut behind him. And Stiles was left alone again, in the small, semi-dark room, and the knowledge that he didn’t have any distractions left to keep him from calling his dad.

It turned out Stiles did need him though, at least for the first thirty seconds. Stiles hadn’t quite memorized the code to connect to comscreens outside the ship yet since he hadn’t made more than one call outside so far (turns out being on the same ship with Scott meant a lot less comscreen connects, who’da thunk?), but he still had his welcome email on his wrist-link so it took maybe a total of forty extra seconds than it would’ve if Silver had been there. No big deal at all. 

His dad picked up the call almost immediately, so he must have been waiting by the screen for Stiles’ pin to come up, which ruled out death or emergency room. It did, however, leave one of the lesser desirable options: Stiles was about to get the fuck lectured out of him. God, why did he stress so much about calling? Why did _Scott_ stress the importance of calling. 

The look on his dad’s face pretty much confirmed lecture, and Stiles didn’t even say hello before he dropped his head to the table with a loud, pained groan. 

“Good to see you too, kiddo. Or talk. For the first time in a while.” 

Stiles couldn’t see anything but the coated metal table under his face, but he knew his dad was giving the lecture eyes—the ones that made Stiles so guilty he confessed everything when he was little. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you asked, Stiles hadn’t been weakened by them enough to spill his guts since he hit puberty.

“Dad, I called you when I first got here.”

“Yes, but you didn’t call to tell me you were compatible with someone in a dual-ship. I, your very loving and very awesome father, had to hear it from Scott.” 

Well that certainly explained the one frowny face from Scott; he was panicking and trying to tell Stiles that he was sorry all in one expression. He couldn’t blame Scott, not really. Before Craig had worked his dad, Stiles had told his dad most of the important things in life, and dual-ship compatibility likely would’ve been on that list.

Stiles lifted his head from the table and tried his hardest not to shrink under his dad’s stare. “That’s because it’s no big deal. This ship requires an eight minimum and we’re only a five. I don’t even know if we can _make_ it to an eight.”

As much as his heart would hate it, he would almost rather not make it to the eight, for his conscience’s sake at least. Flying in tandem with a terrorist wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.

His dad’s face went soft, and Jesus, no, not waterworks. Stiles could not handle his dad crying, even if it was just the action hero ‘I’m proud of you, Son’ kind. 

“I want you to know that I’m proud of you, son. I—“ his dad shut his mouth and fiddled with something offscreen, then turned back. “It was almost too much to have you flying around on those warships, and the situation with the Calypso nearly broke my heart. I see so much of your mother in you, and I’m so proud you got over your fear.”

Stiles pulled his brows together. “My what?” he deadpanned, instead of giving it a questioning lilt.

His dad fumbled his words for a moment or two, then steeled his gaze and went right back in. “Your fear? Of piloting? It’s a big one I know, and I just—“

“Dad,” Stiles cut him off, waving his hands in front of the screen. “Dad. I’m a navigator.” 

“For your dual-ship team?”

Stiles nodded his head, and his dad deflated.

“Oh. Well, I’m still proud of you. Fears are hard to get over, but you’re still doing good and I—Are you sure you don’t want to pilot? At all?”

Stiles’ gaze dropped back to the table. What fear? He just didn’t want to be a pilot, that was all. It was for him.

“Dad, I’m twenty-six—it’s been sixteen years—and I’m pretty positive my calling is navigation.”

“I want you to be happy, son. And I haven’t seen you as happy as you were when you were piloting my old airbike.” 

Stiles bit his lip and adjusted his gaze offscreen. Yeah, once upon a time he did love piloting, but that was before the war started. Mechanics and navigation made him perfectly happy. “Daddy-o, I _can’t_ pilot a ship. I’m not...I can’t.” 

“Listen Stiles, I think your mom would want you to be happy and she would be upset that you’re letting her death get in the way of—”

Stiles’ eyes swung around, harsh. “Dad! I don’t want to sit here and listen to this. You weren’t there, okay? She’s dead and it doesn’t matter what she would want because I’m not piloting a ship.” 

“Stiles, I just don’t want you to throw away your—”

“Bye, Dad,” Stiles said, and his let the anger coursing through his veins shut the screen off before his heart could catch up. The screen grew dark, his dad’s face pressing close and so full of love disappearing behind the blanket of black. 

There was still fifteen minutes of lunch left, so Stiles made pretty good time, he thought. Erica and Boyd were turned towards each other and mid-conversation at their usual spot when he came over, but Silver was missing. Stiles tried not to make it obvious that he was looking for him and his dumb stubble face, but he failed at that pretty spectacularly when Erica noticed. 

“He’s working on the ship again,” she said, nodding towards the one he had been fixing the magnetic system on. “You went into the sex closet and Silver came out grumpier.”

Stiles really didn’t feel like humoring her, and that was a pretty freaking good testament to how frustrated he was. So he took a bite of his ham sandwich, chewed, swallowed, then said in an even tone, “He was just showing me the comscreen.” 

“Is that a euphemism for his penis?” 

Stiles didn’t bother to give that a response, choosing to glare at her instead. Erica reeled back in surprise because that was probably the first time Stiles hadn’t followed something like that up with something equally sexual. Her face went a little slack, then concerned, and Stiles’ gaze shifted back to his sandwich.

“Shit sorry,” she said quietly, intimately, then, “Guess you came out of the sex closet grumpy too.”

* * *

_Seconds later they were soaring through the air, Stiles showing off his turns and the loop-de-loops he hadn’t technically learned yet but he and Scott had started practicing the moment they got their airbike permits. And Scott may have been able to fly his faster, but Stiles definitely had better form in the tricks._

_He couldn’t hear anything but the quiet hum of the ship’s motor and his mom’s laughter, and Stiles wasn’t sure anything would be better. Well, maybe if they somehow made a three person airship or airbike so he and his mom could take his dad along too. Flying wasn’t perfect unless he could hear his dad’s panicked shouts from the back, and his mom definitely thought that too._

_On their way back to the house, the sky grew dark and a buzzing sound that Stiles only learned years later was the sound of thousands of warships flying through the sky, filled the air._

_The sirens, the warning bell for danger, hadn’t started yet so Stiles figured they were okay. They’d make it back to the house in a few minutes and head down to their bunker safe and sound._

_Only they didn’t.  
_

* * *

Part of Peter’s ‘pump it up to level eight’ plan was to alternate working out together and practicing in the simulation room. He hoped they were able to find a real ship they could fly around in, but almost all the dual-ships on The Crowned Galaxy were for use by teams or backups for those ships. Stiles really didn’t have much hope for it until they made level eight, no matter how hard he wanted it. 

That day’s cooperation event was working out at the slightly-shittier of the two pilots’ gyms, which Scott was disappointed about since he wanted to show Stiles his ‘epically awesome puke your brains out workout’ and his membership details only worked in the not-shitty pilots’ gym (Stiles was pretty sure he won though because anything with ‘puke your brains’ out in the title was not a workout Stiles wanted to be a part of). Stiles considered showering to get the grease on his body completely off, but he was going to have to shower after he finished sweating his balls off so he decided not to bother. He didn’t want to get the pilots’ gym dirty though so he wiped down any visible grease or questionable ship fluid marks on his skin as best he could, then changed into one of his old ship t-shirts and a pair of athletic shorts with pockets. 

Hale beat him there, to no one’s surprise, and Stiles was a little startled to see him once again covered from head to toe. Sweatshirt, sweatpants, gloves, high socks, and for God knows why, a fucking _ski mask_. Because what was essentially a black hat pulled over his face with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth _definitely_ made him look like less of a terrorist. 

Hale waved at him when Stiles entered, but Stiles pretty much ignored him. Just because they had to push their muscles to pain in the same room didn’t mean they had to be friends. He did shower after whatever it was he did for work (hopefully sitting in a cell somewhere) as Stiles found when he walked by him and got a whiff of apples, and for how weird Hale was, Stiles had to admit he had pretty good taste in body wash because that smelled delicious.

Stiles didn’t really know his way around a gym and Peter didn’t really detail a workout plan in his order to work out together, so he decided to do what he usually did: run for a little while on the treadmill, ride one of the bike machines since they usually had fun little racing games, then grab one of the free weights (nothing too heavy; Stiles didn’t want to accidentally kill himself) and do a simple arm workout.

Hale, on the other hand, went right to the free weights and started doing some complicated looking lunges. He certainly knew what he was doing, not that Stiles would’ve ever doubted that; Hale’s biceps stretched the fabric of his sweatshirt and no one had legs like that naturally.

For the most part, once they got started he never really bumped into Hale again, and the one time they did it was at the water station and Hale acted just as surprised as Stiles felt seeing him there. The gym wasn’t that big so he must’ve been avoiding Stiles just as much as Stiles was him.

* * *

**Compatibility 5.4**

* * *

Scott beat the email detailing Stiles’ change in work schedule with an excited message. ‘ _guess who’s going on a mission!!!!!!_ ’ Scott had sent, and just as Stiles was typing out a reply, his wrist-link beeped at him, telling him he had an email from the guy in charge of missions. Guess who was going into work on a day he wasn’t supposed to have work to send off the mission team? 

Stiles had long since learned his lesson on hard drinking the night before one of his “days off” so he was a little tired, but not in pain, when he walked into Hangar Four. Scott was already there in a navy blue flight suit with light grey detailing, laughing with the two girls from Whiskey Romeo and a curly headed kid in the same suit as Scott that Stiles assumed was Isaac. Stiles didn’t want to interrupt to say hello or anything, especially since all of them were super attractive and they sort of sparkled in Stiles’ vision. They were kind of intimidating in their flight suits and their beautiful selves. 

Scott had different plans though because he noticed Stiles almost immediately and waved him over. 

“Stiles! This is Isaac, Allison—“ he pointed to the brown haired girl “—and Lydia. Guys, this is my buddy Stiles.” Scott clapped him on the shoulder with a wide smile, and Isaac’s, Allison’s, and Lydia’s mouths all turned upwards as well. Stiles understood it though; Scott had infectious grins. 

“Yo,” Stiles said, waving slightly. 

The redheaded girl, Lydia, rested her eyes on Stiles as if it was completely by her own choice and not just because he was talking, and Stiles wouldn’t have thought that was actually possible. “We’ve heard so much about you, Stiles,” she said. 

Allison’s face broke into a dimpled grin. “Yes, Scott was just telling us about the ship you worked on that sounded like it was, uh, fluffing?” 

“Farting,” Isaac said. “She means farting but she’s too much of a nice girl to say that.” 

“Hey, you didn’t have a mom who would spank you if you said naughties like...like that word. And I’m not the one who giggles uncontrollably whenever someone says poop.” 

Isaac snorted and grabbed his mouth with his hand, pretty effectively demonstrating Allison’s point. 

“Um, yeah. The Red Brass. The engine was shitty so it sounded like it was shitting, hence why its affectionate nickname was the Brown Ass.”

Isaac started laughing harder and Lydia rolled her eyes.

It was at that point that Boyd called him over to check the ships and declare them ready for takeoff. Stiles left with a wave, and before he knew it the dual-ships were leaving too.

* * *

The air conditioning blew out. Of course. And it had to be the day Wolf Pack was working in Hangar One so they couldn’t even open up the exterior doors for airflow because the doors were so freaking big the ship’s airlock and pressure system couldn’t sustain it for more than ten minutes at their altitude. Stiles would have expected that on a ship high in the sky and in a room as big as Hangar One, the air conditioning wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it was. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, it was. The amount of bodies in Hangar One using equipment that gave off heat was too many, and Stiles hadn’t felt that warm since he was on the surface. At least the surface had wind and natural air. 

To make it even worse, that day was a workout day for him and Hale. 

He shot off a quick message to Scott complaining about it, even though he was still away on a mission and likely couldn’t respond. A few days to bomb a supply line seemed a little much, but then again Stiles hadn’t worked on an elite ship before and fuck if he knew the details of missions.

“I don’t think my balls have ever been this sweaty,” he said into the side of a ship and groaned frustratedly when his sweaty hands left marks on the metal. Fixing fuel lines sucked when it was as hot as it was.

“Thank you for the update,” Boyd said hunched over in the pilot’s seat, voice muffled by the guts of the radio system inside. “You know I love hearing about the state of your genitals.”

“What are you, an old man? Who uses the word ‘genitals’ anymore?” 

“Would you have preferred carrot and potatoes? Dollar-fifty? Itchy and Scratchy? Hotdog and onions?” 

“Hotdog and onions, what the hell? How are they onions?” 

Boyd leaned out of the pilot’s seat enough that Stiles could see his face and deadpanned, “Well I’ve heard stories about girls that cried when they saw yours. Onions makes perfect sense.”

Boyd popped back down into his work and Stiles dropped his wrench onto the ground. Boyd should be so glad Stiles only had a toolbox of hard tools and a rag he actually needed because otherwise Boyd would be getting something to the face for that.

“Ha ha, do you hear me? I’m busting a gut laughing.” 

Stiles watched his sweat drip off his face and onto his work for the fourth time too many. Screw that. He unzipped the top half of his jumpsuit and slid out of the sleeves, revealing his sweaty bare chest. Stiles wasn’t wearing an undershirt for laundry reasons (i.e. there was a complete lack of shirts for him to wear and he really needed to go do that) and he couldn’t tell if it was a bit of good luck or not. On one hand, he had an entire layer off. On the other, his torso was exposed and he had nothing to wipe his face with. 

It was only moderately better, to be honest. His sweat took longer to build up so he was able to get more done before it dripped into his eyes, but he still couldn’t find where the leak was coming from. Flashlight in mouth, Stiles ended up having to shove his arms pretty far up into the ship to manipulate some of the parts enough to see if they were causing the problem. In other words, he had grease and gas all up his forearms because he had opted to remove his jumpsuit, and it smelled like shit. 

There was a click above his head and Boyd stopped humming his work song of the day. He must have finished with the radio. 

“You almost done down there? Erica’s bringing in another ship and we’ve got to shift.” 

Stiles shook his head no, then when he realized Boyd couldn’t see him, said, “Nah. I replaced almost every part in the system and I still can’t find where it’s leaking from.”

“Silver’s pretty good at that. If he can’t figure it out we’re going to have to move it anyway.” 

Stiles sighed and leaned out of the machine. Right. Silver. At the very least setting it aside would give it enough time for the gas to evaporate off it. 

He stood up and wiped his arms as best as he could with his rag, which was almost entirely dirty and smelled heavily like gas by that point, so he wasn’t sure it did anything but spread it across his skin. 

It was Silver’s turn for the shitty job so he was by the mini-ships doing basic upkeep on the rack of dual-ships. Stiles was kind of betting that Silver would gladly leave that for something else, even if that something else was checking for leaks in a fuel line. 

“Yo, Silver!” he shouted across a few ships. Silver startled, but didn’t flail around or fumble his clipboard with his little jump, so Stiles gave it a two-out-of-ten on the shit-your-pants-scale. The top part of his jumpsuit was hanging loose off his waist too, and man did Silver have great biceps. It was a shame he had a tank top on, that was for sure. 

“Yeah?” Silver replied, and set his clipboard down on the nearest ship before turning around. 

“So I’m having a bit of trouble locating the source of a leak and Wolfsbane said I should…” Stiles trailed off and paused when he noticed Silver wasn’t paying attention and staring intently at where the top half of Stiles’ jumpsuit, or at the very least an undershirt, should be. 

“What, do I have something on my chest?” Stiles glanced down and wow, yeah he had a lot of something on his chest. There was grease all over his pecs and what he thought was gas on his abdomen. 

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said before ducking his head and trying to rub the grease away, which did nothing but smear it more across his skin. Silver made a strange sound and when Stiles’ head popped up at the noise, his eyes were nearly bugging out of his head. 

“Um…Do you think you can help me?” Stiles said nervously, trying to will the blush rising on his chest and neck away. 

Silver’s eyes jerked up and he had the audacity to look ashamed with himself. “Uh, ye-” he said and when his voice cracked mid word he shut his mouth with a click. “Yeah,” he tried again. “I can.” 

“Um, awesome.” 

Silver didn’t stop being awkward until they reached the ship and he saw the engine vomit underneath it. Stiles hadn’t exactly been successful at being neat towards the end there.

“Jesus, Scooter,” he mumbled. “You mouth off, wear your uniform wrong, and leave disgusting messes for me to lay in.” 

Despite his complaining Silver plopped back first into the mess with a flashlight in his mouth, all concentration and sharp intent. He fiddled around inside the ship a bit, grimacing when he touched the gunky mess inside that Stiles completely understood. 

“It looks like there’s a puddle in the carb,” Silver said around the flashlight. “I can’t tell if it’s leaking in there still or if it just accumulated before you were able to change the line and the injector.” 

“So we’re going to have to wait for the gas to evaporate off then.” 

Silver slid out from under the ship and went for obnoxiously showy instead of getting up like a normal person, choosing to roll back onto his shoulders and ninja kick himself into a standing position. Stiles rolled his eyes at the dramatics, but he was maybe a little thankful that he got to see Silver’s abs work the way they did. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

Well there went hours of work. 

“Great.”

* * *

As expected, the gym was as hot and humid as Satan’s asscrack with the air conditioning broken as it was. Stiles tried to do his usual workout routine, but after about ten minutes of that he substituted it with a ‘work for five minutes then break for two’ plan. He was wearing as little possible and he was still boiling up inside, whereas crazy-ass Hale was completely covered. Again. 

Stiles probably wouldn’t have given much of a shit if Hale hadn’t also been doing some crazy intense leg workout in his too-many clothes in an overly hot and sweaty room. It was like watching a sick animal slowly separate from the pack with a hungry lion in the tall grass a few meters away. And yet Hale kept working out. His drive was kind of intense. 

“You can probably take your sweatshirt off you know,” he found himself saying, and tried not to let his surprise at actually feeling something for the guy’s health show on his face. “I’m not going to be able to recognize you by your fucking arms, Hale.” 

Hale jumped a little, but didn’t screw up his counts. (Stiles tallied another two on the shit-your-pants ledger.) He paused like he was going to consider it and shifted from foot to foot before ultimately shrugging off his sweatshirt. And Jesus tap-dancing Christ, his grey tank was completely soaked through with sweat, huge muscles glistening. Hale definitely knew his way around a gym, that was for sure. 

Hale turned to put his sweatshirt off to the side, and Stiles went to look away before he was tempted too much by the guy’s back muscles because he was not going to check out a terrorist, but his eye caught on something—a dark smudge across Hale’s shoulder that disappeared under his tank. It almost looked like… “You’ve got a little _engine grease?_ On your shoulder.” 

Hale froze immediately, tension rolling up his back until he was one rigid sucker. He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Stiles needed to get back to his five minutes of exercising because his break had lasted at least three minutes too long. Had Hale pulled something when he bent over? 

“You, uh, alright, Hale?” he said, and before he’d even finished speaking Hale had pulled the sweatshirt back on. _O_ kay. What a weird guy. 

Thankfully the air conditioner was back on two days later.

* * *

The day Charlie Kilo and Whiskey Romeo, among other ships, were scheduled to return, Erica and Stiles were attaching a newly cut out wing to a ship that had lost theirs. Erica probably could’ve handled it herself, but it was faster with two and the mechanics crews were fairly busy with checking all the dual-ship parts to make sure they didn’t come from a recently discovered shipment of faulty ones. Despite that, it was a fairly slow day overall for Wolf Pack and since the ships were arriving at Hangar One they got to spend the wait time working. 

Erica crossed over to the other side of the wing from Stiles to shape part of it, or as it looked like to Stiles, hammer the shit out of it until it succumbed to her will. The clanging from that was so similar to the sound the steel doors made that Stiles would’ve missed the ship homecoming had it not been coupled with flickering lights from ten ships entering and systematically blocking the sun.

“Scooter,” Erica stuttered out, looking paler than Stiles had ever seen her before. The ships roared around them but they were close enough he could just make out her words. “Can you hand me my glasses?” 

Stiles glanced down and by his feet were her welding glasses that she’d left after attaching that side. She was maybe twelve centimeters away from them so she could conceivably grab them herself so it was so weird that she was asking him, but oh well. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said, shrugging, and bent down to pick them up off the floor. The moment his fingertips touched them Erica fell down with a thump and started shaking. No, convulsing. At first Stiles didn’t know what was happening; she looked like one of the stereotypical possessed girls from horror movies and Stiles honestly thought she would start vomiting odd colors any moment. 

“Mistletoe, what are you doing?” he asked helplessly, his voice caught in his throat. She didn’t reply of course. Then, awareness, and Stiles took a step back and promptly tripped over the welding torch Erica had been using minutes before. 

The noise must have alerted Boyd because he was there in a second, shouting for Silver over the loudness of the engines and moving things out of the way so Erica couldn’t hurt herself. And Stiles couldn’t move. Blood was rushing in his ears, a deep ache settled in his gut, and Stiles couldn’t make himself move. His legs were weights; they were welded to the ground with Erica’s torch. 

Silver passed by and grabbed Stiles shoulder, a sudden heat that left the rest of Stiles’ body shockingly cold. He was gone and over by Erica before Stiles had even registered what happened. 

It couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes from the point Erica had started seizing, and her leaving with a few medics, but it felt like hours had passed. And Stiles was still sprawled out on the ground where he fell. 

A pair of legs stopped in front of him and Stiles stared at their kneecaps, and the stiff, harsh folds in the mechanics jumpsuit above them. 

“Are you okay?” the legs asked, and Stiles let his eyes trail up to see Silver with concern in his eyes.

“Am I...Am _I_ okay? I’m not the one who just…” Stiles put his hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes together tightly. 

“Scooter. Stiles. Mistletoe is okay.” 

“I just watched her and I didn’t help and I thought she was playing or something, Silver. She could be hurt and it would be all my fault.” 

“Stiles, look at me,” Silver said again, and his hands were on Stiles’ shoulders. His eyelids peeled open slowly and Silver was so close. Stiles could count the pores on his nose or the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes from that distance if he wanted. “Mistletoe is okay. She’s a strong girl and this is something she knows how to deal with. She’s went back to her room to sleep but she will be here tomorrow bright and happy as usual, I guarantee it.” 

That seemed too easy. Stiles had never seen a seizure except for in movies but… “I laughed when Scott broke his leg ten or so years ago. I fell over because I was laughing so hard and I didn’t stop until I saw why he was crying.” 

Silver’s lip quirked and his hands slid up to Stiles’ cheeks. “Let’s get back to work, Scooter,” he said gently, and he lightly patted Stiles’ cheeks where his hands rested before standing up. 

Stiles had to suck in a breath before he could move again. 

Later, he got a message from Scott saying, ‘ _I would’ve said hello but I had to go to mission debriefing. is E okay?_ ’

* * *

That night he and Hale had their second compatibility test and Stiles couldn’t focus. His movements were jerky, his speech delayed, and he could tell Hale was getting increasingly more frustrated with him. 

The simulation expert, whose name turned out to be Danielle, seemed hopeful, but they couldn’t pull anything higher than a five-point-four.

* * *

**Compatibility 6.3**

* * *

Erica was indeed back the next morning and talking about something animatedly with Silver. She looked pretty excited actually, all grins and big arm motions, while Silver looked largely unimpressed. 

“-ease please, Silver, I could twist your titties if you don’t,” he heard Erica say when he walked closer. Then, “Scooter!” 

She didn’t follow it up with anything, just grinned wide and a little creepily. 

“Yes?” Stiles asked.

“You said you were a navigator at the bar, right?” 

“...Yes?” he answered. He wasn’t exactly sure what she was getting at, and when he tried to look at Silver for answers Silver’s shoulders were hunched over slightly and his gaze was firmly on the floor between them. 

“Silver here knows how to pilot, and you’re a navigator. I need the two of you to pretty please do me a favor involving the test flying of a certain ship that I’ve made.” 

Stiles blinked slowly. “You’re a pilot?” he asked Silver, incredulous, and Silver looked like he wanted to sink into the floor. 

“Yes, but I’m not currently _licensed_ ,” he said through his teeth. 

Holy shit. Silver was a _pilot_. Stiles could saddle up in the backseat and let Silver take the ride, and he’d bet it would be awesome. 

“Don’t be a party pooper man, let’s do it,” Stiles said and he slapped Silver’s back. Silver fell a little forward with the force of the hit, but yeah, right, Silver was built like a brick shithouse and there was no way Stiles could ever build up enough strength to make that much of an impact unless his mind wasn’t completely in the moment. 

Silver’s face twisted into a look Stiles couldn’t name. “I have work to do,” he said and turned around, but before he truly left he added, “I’ll think about it.” 

It wasn’t a very reassuring answer, but Erica’s grin was wide and happy so it must’ve been good. 

“Thanks, Scooter,” she said and slapped him on the back. “I’ve been trying to get him to fly my baby for ages now. He’s always going on about rules and regulations for flying, but he knows he could always just get his uncle to cover for him if he ever got caught flying outside.”

Her hand rested on his shoulder, and Stiles barely kept from giving into the urge to press into it. He couldn’t believe this woman was the same one that had a seizure the day before. She seemed too _strong_.

The hand on his shoulder tightened, and when he looked up at her face Erica’s grin was drooping lightly. “Go ahead,” she said softly, like he was pulling it out of her guts with his bare hand. “I know you want to ask.” 

And that was possibly the worst way to ask him—like he wasn’t going to feel like shit about it already, but then again maybe that’s what she was feeling about it. Everyone probably asked her.

“Are you okay?” he said, and he rolled his shoulder under her palm.

“Of course,” Erica said with a wink, and her hand slid down his arm and into her own body space. 

“Doesn’t it suck?” burst out of his mouth next, and he wished more than anything he could pull that back onto his tongue when her face contorted into something awful before going carefully blank. 

“Of course,” she said again, matter of factly. “Besides the large amount of bullying I suffered growing up, I wanted more than anything to be a mini-ship pilot and couldn’t because my brain likes to go on the fritz sometimes. ‘Course the life expectancy for those things is shit so maybe it’s a good thing I got to live to the ripe old age of twenty-five at least. Life doesn’t always go the way you want it, but I’m happy and around people who care about me. I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. Plus-” she shrugged “-I’m a damn good mechanic who’s got a ship in the works to maybe allow me and other photosensitive epileptics to fly or navigate. A ship, by the way, that you promised to test drive soon and I’m holding you to that fact, sucker.” 

She finished with a grin and patted him on the back before heading over to Silver and their workload. Stiles just sort of stumbled after her, speechless and feeling a little guilty for being so impressed.

* * *

It was a little exhilarating to be in the navi slot of an actual dual-ship, and not the simulation or a dual-ship-like ship, like an airbike,. For one thing, it was wider and the controls looked like actual controls instead of blinking Christmas lights and unattached buttons. 

Plus being behind Silver was freaking amazing. He came into Hangar Six in a well-loved blue flight suit, soft and a little worn around the edges. Stiles’ was a simple grey one from his days in the academy, and it was a bit tight in places where he’d filled out in the last eight years (he was proud to admit that his gut was definitely not one of them, despite the copious amounts of junk food he had eaten).

It was weird in a way. There was a niggling in the back of his mind, in his core, telling him he’d been there before, behind Silver, but it was nonsense. Maybe it was just his heart telling him that’s where he belonged, and if that was the case, maybe he needed to get Silver to try out his compatibility with Stiles to replace Hale, because hell if he and Silver weren’t up there in compatibility already. 

“You won’t need your helmets unless you want them, so you can pass those right over the side to me if you want,” Erica said beside them, standing on one of the step stools used to climb into the ship, and Silver passed his over. Her smile was wide and infectious, and hell if Stiles didn’t feel happy just watching her be happy about her ship. 

He himself slid on his own helmet and offered her a mock salute to say he was good. He’d had flight suit safety drilled into him since he was young and it seemed like a betrayal not to keep the helmet on even when Erica’s ship had a polymer canopy that slid over the Pilot and Navigator like a bubble. 

“Okay, well, be safe with my baby and make sure you pay attention and answer all I’ve asked for!”

She stepped off the ladder with a wave and Silver turned the thrusters on, slightly overriding the magnets keeping the ship afloat in the hangar. It was go time. 

Erica’s ship handled like a dream, if the way the ship cut through the clouds said anything about it. He could see Silver’s grin through his mirrors so that had to be good, and yeah, Stiles understood the happiness completely. The navigations system looked standard so Erica probably hadn’t done anything but have it wired into place, but it was functional and it wasn’t like they needed the full set of operations like they would mid-battle. 

“You ever field fly?” Stiles asked when his radar caught wind of a giant farm thirty clips east. It was strange not using his helmet microphone to speak to the pilot, even when the seats were maybe a meter apart, but maybe that was what was so magic about Erica’s ship. The sun glares were minimal and the noise from the engine was barely there at all. 

“Nah, I’m a city boy,” Silver replied, and when Stiles directed him over to the farm he went easily. 

The farm itself had been abandoned some time ago, but Stiles was pretty positive that was because the edge was right overhead. Even withouth the danger of war, nothing much was going to grow beneath all that ship exhaust. The grass did just fine though, growing tall and almost completely concealing a tractor ship broken down a mile or so off from the rotten barn. Not a bad course for field flying, in other words. 

“You want to teach me how to do it first?” Silver asked, finger hovering above the pilot systems override button, and Stiles only gave a cursory glance at the piloting controls underneath the radar before firmly saying, “Fuck, no.” 

He did, however, plot the toughest course he could with the materials given just to watch Silver get frustrated. 

“You’re going to fuck up the engines in Erica’s ship with all this grass,” Silver said darkly, but he wasn’t slowing down or peeling up out of the grass layer (it had to be almost two meters high!). 

“I don’t see you ascending so stop whining, you big baby. Tractor is half a clip, 11 o’clock.”

Silver swore and jerked the ship towards the tractor. That’s what happens when someone complains; they lose their trajectory and their amazingly awesome navigator has to correct them.

“Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and funsucker pilot, it’s me, the amazing navi, Stiles Stilinski. Today the amazing Silver is going to perform a trick for us. Which trick are you planning to do today, Silver?” 

“I’m not doing a trick, Scooter.” 

“Why not? C’mon that’s the entire point of the tractor obstacle.” 

“Maybe because I can’t even see it through this fucking grass?” Silver grumbled, his hands tense around his steering stick and his eyes steadfastly glued to the field just outside the screen. “What if I hit the tractor? Total the ship Erica calls ‘Baby’ because you want me to do a trick?” 

He wouldn’t. Silver’s reflexes when they were still up in the cloud layer were too on point for him to screw it up in a field of all places. “I think you’re a fucking chicken, that’s what.” 

“I’m not,” Silver grumbled, and when the tractor came on the radar Stiles relayed the message and Silver did a fucking trick. God, he was so easy to play. 

The Immelmann turn was a little jerky on the handling end, but that was forgivable since Silver himself said he didn’t have a license anymore or whatever so it’s not like he’d had the chance to practice his moves that often. The ship on the other hand reacted like it was made for it. Stiles clenched his stomach to prepare for the light-headedness he got from inversions, but none came. The air pressure inside adjusted and changed immediately as the ship completed the rotations of the Immelmann turn, and the lights, Jesus, the lights. It was like everything was one level of brightness from one light source, and not being blocked by the ship or the grass or anything. Just one low equal setting, and it was amazing. 

“Oh my God, I’m gonna come,” Stiles muttered, his fingers lightly brushing the navi system in front of him. This ship, Jesus _this ship_.

“Was my Immelmann turn that good?” Silver asked, and when Stiles lifted his eyes he was smirking at him through the rearview reflector. 

“No, this fucking ship is. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, I’ve got the biggest boner right now.” 

Silver went bright red and his eyes pulled away from the reflector and onto the sky in front of them. “I think it’s time to go back,” he said, and Stiles didn’t comment on the fact that they’d skipped the barn obstacle. He’d rub in the forfeit later.

* * *

“How’d it go?” Erica asked when they got back, and Stiles could tell she was making an effort not to pounce on them like an excited puppy. 

“I’m sorry about the jizz I got in your navi seat,” Stiles said, and Silver’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. 

Erica, on the other hand, got the joke for what it was and didn’t overreact. “That good, huh?” she asked with a smirk, and Stiles could only shoot her a boneless shrug. 

“The noise cancelling was a little off on the front left and occasionally the light equalizers were a few seconds too slow,” Silver answered honestly, and Stiles thought that was a bit excessive. 

Erica seemed to appreciate it though, going intense and focused the moment Silver started speaking. “Okay, I’ll check the seal and talk to Danny about the electronics.” 

“The navi controls need to be updated too if you want that thing battle ready,” Stiles offered seriously. “It’s okay for basic flights but it doesn’t have the ability to keep up with more than ten or so targets.”

Erica took down Stiles’ notes into a small notebook too, and soon enough they were putting Erica’s ship up and heading off to spend the rest of their day off as they pleased.

* * *

The next couple weeks went by fairly quickly. A mission that Scott was thankfully not on, or Whiskey Romeo for that matter, went south and while there was only one team death there were a lot of broken ships. Essentially, Stiles felt like he was at work all the time, and when he wasn’t he was talking to his dad (who thankfully only mentioned the piloting thing that first time), with Derek Hale, or hanging out with Scott.

His and Hale’s simulation score was just as uneventful, staying at a five-point-eight for several weeks straight, and Peter started personally coming to their appointments to ensure they were actually doing things together (and Jesus tap-dancing Christ had Hale’s arm workout been difficult; Boyd had to carry his toolbox for two days after). He seemed frantic to get things done, especially after Blue Willow’s team died and Crow Warrior went out of commision due to injury.

“It’s still at a five-point-eight,” Peter said as Stiles climbed out of the simulator. He was leaning over Danielle by the score podium, and she looked largely uncomfortable. Stiles would feel the same way if Peter was trying to encroach on his job and space. 

“I’m really disappointed in you Derek. Stiles.” He said Stiles’ name almost like an afterthought, his eyes firmly on Hale’s hunched over frame. 

“I’ll do better next time,” Hale answered, and Stiles squirmed a bit under his tone. Hale was so… _compliant_ , weak-willed, and it messed with the terrorist persona Stiles had built up in his head. 

“You better. I’m going to have you eat together every once in a while now since that worked for Alpha Zulu for some time.” 

Hale started forward, and _that_ was more like it. Only, after two steps he sunk in on himself again and stopped. Back to his soft self then. “Uncle Peter, you know why that’s a bad idea.” 

“Uncle?” Stiles shouted, and three sets of eyes turned on him. Hell, his own eyes would be turned on him if that were physically possible. 

“Stiles, it’s no secret that my name is Peter Hale,” he said with a smirk, and Stiles wanted to sit down and do some breathing exercises or _something_. “It was on my door and desk when you met me for the first time. He also has a sister aboard this ship, if you want to keep surprise to a minimum. Her name is—”

“Uncle,” Hale interrupted sharply, his posture defensive. 

“Ah. It seems he wants to keep her a secret. What can I say? _Nephews_.” 

Peter finished his sentence with an exaggerated wave, like he was brushing off the importance, and Stiles and Danielle shared a look. The fucker was handsome, but Stiles had never seen him treat anyone nicely.

* * *

Dinner was an...experience. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it since it wasn’t really bad, but not good either. It was firmly planted in okay, like mashed potatoes with great flavor but still had un-mashed potato chunks in it.

They went to a private room with catering (probably a product of Hale being related to the second in command on ship, but hell the food was great so Stiles wasn’t complaining about that), and arranged the tables so that the chairs he and Hale would sit in were back to back. It seemed excessive, but everything Hale did was like that. The guy was so uptight about his identity, and at that point Stiles was too exhausted to care. 

The helmet came off with a sharp click and a soft release of air (top of the line flight suit helmet there) behind Stiles’ head, and Stiles nearly jolted forward when the short bristles of Hale’s hair brushed against the back of his head. They were sitting back to back so it was expected, but the reality of Hale being in anything but a black and grey flight suit or baggy workout clothes was weird.

He could turn at any moment and see Hale’s face. He could get up to get more water and see Hale. It was within his reach and yet Stiles didn’t go for it. Hale was putting his trust in Stiles and that made him feel...gooey.

* * *

They got a six-point-three on their next simulation test, and Peter seemed pleased.

* * *

Boyd was more frantic than Stiles had ever seen him when Stiles got into work. Sure, that mostly meant he kept looking at the Hangar Six entrance instead of anything indicating panic on a different person, but it was strange and unsettling. Seeing calm, resilient Boyd be anything but made Stiles’ gut turn, especially considering what day it was. 

“You know he’s probably not coming in today,” Erica said from underneath a red and black ship. Silver was the only one missing, so it wasn’t a hard guess to figure out who she was talking about. 

Boyd’s lip raised, showing off a canine, and he glared hard into the papers he was flipping on his clipboard. “Well this shit needs his signature and if he wasn’t going to come in today he should have let us know.” 

“He’s done it for the past five years, Boyd.” 

It was strange hearing Erica call him by his name and not his nickname, and if the way the tension in Boyd’s posture melted were any indication, he felt the same way. 

“I know,” Boyd said softly, and he set the clipboard down on his toolbox. 

It wasn’t difficult to guess why Silver wasn’t there, not really. There were yellow and red ribbons hanging in the corridors and a memorial service planned for that evening to commemorate the event from six years ago, and Silver had apparently stopped going to work on that day five years prior. It could only be one thing, and it made Stiles feel worse about being fucking _flight compatible_ with one of the guys responsible. Silver must have known someone who died in the bombing of Beacon Hills by one Kate Argent and a Derek Hale. 

It was probably a good thing he wasn’t meeting Hale that evening because Stiles wasn’t sure he could look at him and not want to punch him in the face. He’s not sure he ever felt anything different about Hale, but he wanted to _especially_ that day.

“I could, uh, get his signature?” Stiles offered, and Erica snorted. He wanted to ask why Silver wasn’t there. It was none of his business and he knew it, but that didn’t stop his curiosity, the questions burning away in his gut. 

“You have work, just like the rest of us, and you’re still new.” 

Meaning, if he got caught skipping he’d be in deep doo-doo, and he didn’t have the experience to counteract a bad mark. But he’d be okay. If Silver didn’t get caught, Stiles wouldn’t get caught. Probably.

“Just like Silver.” 

“Silver’s special.” 

That was a completely unsatisfying answer. “No, it’s fine I’ve got—” Shit what did he have? He was still sort of new on the ship so he didn’t have any kind of veteran advantage, but he was kind of close to being an official dual-ship navigator for The Crowned Galaxy, and, well, he knew that _the_ terrorist Derek Hale was Peter’s nephew. Peter wasn’t exactly hiding who his nephew was, but it would have to do. “I have some dirt on Peter so it’s okay,” he finished. 

Boyd’s face went through a series of twitches and Erica ducked back down to her work to hide her laughter (Her back was shaking. As if that wasn’t obvious.). “Peter let you get dirt on him?” Boyd asked, though it sounded more like he was stating a fact. 

He wasn’t sure it was really dirt if Peter let him have it, but that was probably the closest description. Not that Boyd knew that. Hopefully. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine.” 

“Well, okay,” Boyd said, his eyebrows high on his forehead, and he handed Stiles the clipboard with the sheet on it. “Be back as soon as possible. Silver is room 202 in the Red Wing.” 

The Red wing was sort of near the dual-ship team dorm rooms, and Stiles knew that area well enough from Scott. Well sort of. He could walk to Scott’s and Isaac’s room and that was about it, but he figured if he walked in that general direction he could maybe pull up his email on his wrist-link and dig through several months of stuff to get to his newbie days when they sent out maps. 

Once finding the map proved futile, he ended up wandering a bit to where he thought the Red wing should start, but kept coming up to dead ends. Stiles managed to find a fresh-faced kid passing out memorial ribbons in the middle of the Cosmos corridor and grabbed a ribbon to pin on his uniform to make it seem like he wasn’t just there to ask directions. 

“Oh yeah, sure,” the kid said in an accent Stiles couldn’t place. “There’s only one entrance so it can be kinda hard to find. Just go up two flights of the stairs just beyond us, take a left, and the fifth floor entrance should be on your left.”

“Why is there only one entrance?” Stiles asked, his voice muffled by his chest as he did up the back of the safety pin the ribbon was attached to. 

The kid waved him off, shrugging. “Easier to protect or something. I think it looks like the opposite but you’ve got to keep those higher ups and their families safe so a giant red cube hanging off the side of the ship sounds like the perfect way to do that.” 

“Oh, uh, well thanks I guess,” Stiles said, but the kid didn’t acknowledge him beyond a short nod towards the stairs. 

The name of the wing was on a bright red sign so once he got there it wasn’t difficult to maneuver, and minutes and a couple flights of stairs later he was staring at Silver’s door. 202. 

It was pretty quiet in the hallway and Stiles wasn’t actually sure if Silver would be in there. Or if he’d want company, even if it’s just to sign shit. But fuck it. He shoved Boyd’s clipboard in his armpit and rapped his knuckles against the red metal door. There was a thump and a few shuffling noises in response, so Silver was definitely in then. 

The door swung open a careful few centimeters, and Stiles waved helpfully at the dark space in the room behind it. Silver apparently had never heard of lights. He should at least turn on the Vitamin D lamp if he planned to spend the day wallowing in his room. 

The door opened the rest of the way to reveal Silver in crappy, stained sweatpants, and an inside out shirt. His skin was paler than usual and he had deep purple circles under his eyes. If Stiles hadn’t known any better, he’d say he was sick.

“Scooter,” Silver said, his voice hoarse. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, and not even the sight of his biceps pulling his t-shirt sleeves taut could make him look healthier.

“I’ve got a few things for you to sign,” Stiles said, and he tried to put as much pep into his voice as possible in an attempt for Silver to pick it up by osmosis or something (and maybe a little because he was trying to pump himself up because he was compatible with the guy that made Silver feel like shit, and that made _him_ feel like shit). Stiles waved the clipboard under his arm a little at Silver as if to show him the physical evidence, and Silver’s eyes tracked the movement, pausing on his chest. Oh right, the ribbon. 

He didn’t think it was insensitive, but the way Silver’s lips curled down a little bit before he reached for the clipboard made him feel like it was anyway. 

“Pen?” Silver asked, and Stiles patted his pockets down helplessly before shrugging. He kind of forgot that part of it. 

Silver sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose, forehead wrinkling in all the wrong ways. Stiles bit his lips to keep from mentioning it in a sarcastic comment, or doing something stupid like reaching out to smooth the lines away. 

“What am I supposed to do, Scooter? Sign it in blood?”

“Or another body fluid,” Stiles said, and helplessly exaggerated his own laughter when Silver didn’t bother to roll his eyes. 

Silver sighed again, his shoulders sagging forward like Stiles was telling him he didn’t have much longer to live, and turned abruptly in his doorway. He held the door open for Stiles in a half-attempted invitation for Stiles to follow him in, and Stiles had gotten used to Silver’s body language enough that he wasn’t caught unaware and flailing trying to catch the door before it shut. 

Silver flicked the lights on and shuffled over to his desk to presumably find a pen, leaving Stiles awkwardly by the door. He tried not to look around too much—it seemed like too much of an invasion of privacy when Silver acted like he didn’t really want him in there—but he ultimately failed. It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity and who was Stiles to deny himself that?

It was a single, and Stiles was pretty jealous about that, but if what the kid passing out ribbons said was true then the only reason he had one was because he was related to someone with a high rank. His closet was closed tightly and pushed to the wall to the left of the door. The desk was on the right next to the empty laundry basket, and papers and random knick-knacks were spread out and falling off it. A heap of red and black blankets and no visible pillows sat on the bed against the far wall. Silver was a lot messier than Stiles thought, though if Stiles had the space to be messy back in his room he’d definitely outdo Silver. 

The walls and shelves of the desk were blank. No pictures, no posters, no nothing. It was kind of unsettling. Even in his tiny twenty-four centimeters of wall space in his little cubby thing, Stiles had covered the open space in pictures of him, Scott, and his dad. If it weren’t for the mess here and there, Stiles would say it was almost clinical. 

The question was, did Silver have no pictures because of what day it was? Like it was a mourning thing? Or did Silver separate himself from his family? 

“Did you used to live in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked when Silver finally dug a pen out and started scribbling on the sheets. He almost regretted it when the hard lines of Silver’s back tensed up, but Silver shook himself loose, like he was forcing himself to relax before a dogfight, and started talking. 

“Once upon a time,” Silver breathed out, and Stiles nearly choked because he wasn’t really expecting Silver to reply. Maybe a little yelling or sarcasm at the minimum, but not a legitimate answer.

 _Once upon a time_ didn’t really say much though; Beacon Hills was a crater from what Stiles understood. He’d never been to the place himself but Scott’s dad had lived there before and had extended family in the area. 

Stiles rocked back on his heels and rested his shoulders against the door. He wished he could sit so he didn’t feel so out of place in Silver’s space. The bed would be nice; he could plop right into that fluffy pile and sink into the mattress, then call Silver over and just hug the shit out of him until the bad day was over. It only surprised him a little at how bad he wanted that. 

Instead, he shuffled over to Silver’s back, reached out his hand, hesitated, then took a deep breath and pressed his hand to Silver’s shoulder. It was warm, not nearly as hot as Stiles remembered Silver had been the other times they’d touched, but nice and heavy under Stiles’ palm, and Silver sighed into it. Stiles didn’t know what to call the warmth fluttering in his stomach, but it bubbled and boiled over into his throat until it left nothing but bittersweet happiness on his tongue. 

“At…” Stiles said, but paused to lick his lips when it came out dry and throaty. “At least they got one of them. Shot her right out of the sky.” He finished his words with an awkward pat, and reluctantly removed his hand. Any longer and it wouldn’t be in the appropriate brozone length of time, and Silver really didn’t need to know about the weird feelings Stiles was starting to get around him. 

“Yeah,” Silver echoed hollowly, and Stiles uncomfortably shifted his weight onto one foot. Wrong thing to say then. Good going Stiles.

Silver looked even worse than he did before Stiles tried to comfort him. His hands were clenched in a white knuckled grip around the clipboard and his pen, pressing so hard into the paper that Stiles was surprised it didn’t tear when he signed his name. 

“D’you maybe want to go to the memorial service together?” Stiles stuttered out in a last attempt, because Jesus tap-dancing Christ he never wanted to make Silver feel awful. 

“No,” Silver said heavily, and passed the clipboard back to Stiles. Shit, he had fucked up pretty spectacularly. 

He counted it a small victory when the door didn’t slam when Silver practically pushed him out of the room. 

The next time Stiles saw Silver, he acted like bombing day and their discussion on it never happened, and it made something heavy churn in Stiles’ gut. But at least he didn’t seem to be keeping any weird grudges on Stiles’ big mouth with his ignorance of the issue, so it looked like there was no groveling or asking for forgiveness in his future.

* * *

**Compatibility 7.7**

* * *

Stiles was putting on his gym clothes for his meet up with Hale when he received a message from Peter saying he got ahold of a ship. In some ways he was curious to see how flying with someone he had a six-point-three compatibility with was. The simulation was one thing, but actual flying? Stiles had only flown in a dual-ship with Scott and Silver, as well as a couple instructors back from the academy, but Stiles wasn’t sure they counted. Not when it’d been more than eight years since, anyway. 

He didn’t know how Hale would act though. Would it be similar to the simulations? He was pretty smooth through those, but actual flying? What if his terrorist self decided to dive bomb something when Stiles was with him? 

Stiles took a deep breath and slid on his flight suit, still just as grey and even tighter around the shoulders and thighs, if possible (fucking Peter and being forced to do Hale’s workouts). He would be okay. 

They met in Hangar Two, which was possibly the smallest hangar Stiles had ever been in. Apparently it was a training hangar, which was why Stiles had never been in it before. 

Peter and Hale were standing around a dingy brown and red ship, apparently their dual-ship, and it looked like someone had chopped up three different ships and tried to combine them into some sort of working order. Actually, that was likely what it was. Lydia and Allison from Whiskey Romeo were there too, for whatever reason, and Allison waved from where she and Lydia were leaning against a wall near a green ship that definitely wasn’t theirs. Lydia only cocked her head in his direction for a greeting, lips twisted into a coy smirk. 

Peter pulled him away from Hale and the ship as soon as Stiles reached them, and he couldn’t help but look back at Hale in confusion, but Hale was staring at the ground and fidgeting with something in his hand. When Peter felt he was a suitable distance away from Hale and the Whiskey Romeo team, he physically turned Stiles and put both of his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. Stiles tried not to make it seem like he wanted nothing more than to shrug them off. 

“Are you still adamant about being a navigator?” 

Stiles shot him a pinched look, then glanced back at Hale. Did Hale say something? What, Stiles didn’t know, but what else could bring this conversation on? Again. 

“Yes,” Stiles spat out, and decided to step out from under Peter’s hands. He’d tried and now he was done. 

“That’s too bad. My nephew is expressing some… _reservations_ about being your flight partner.” 

_Hale_ was? Stiles was a perfectly respectable mechanic outside of his navigating duties, Hale on the other hand, was definitely fucking not. Hale was a terrorist who bombed the shit out of Beacon Hills until it was nothing but one giant crater, and yet Hale was the one with doubts. 

“So I didn’t get to back out of this shit, but he gets to?”

Peter smirked. “Oh, I didn’t say he was, just that he had some concerns. You should figure that out before your compatibility score drops. We don’t want to have wasted our time trying to bump you guys up, right?”

He had to be fucking kidding Stiles. “I’m going to go over to Hale and the ship now,” Stiles said, and did precisely that. 

As he was walking back, Peter said loudly, but not quite shouting, “We have access to your psych records and you really should get over your little hangups with piloting.”

Yeah, Stiles had no doubt that Peter was related to a terrorist. None at all. 

The Whiskey Romeo team, as it turned out, was there because Peter asked them to be. Peter wanted to put together a dogfight with real ships, and that was difficult to do with one ship, which was probably why Peter took so long to get the ship he promised Stiles and Hale ready. What Stiles couldn’t understand, was why Peter thought sending a highly ranked level ten team to fight an in-training six-point-three was a good idea.

* * *

_Clang_. The paintball hit the right wing and red splashed down its side, running over a bit of green from earlier and blending with the fresher yellow. 

“Can’t you shake them?” Stiles yelled out, despite the fact that the microphone in his helmet would broadcast his voice to Hale’s helmet clearly. It had to be the twentieth time they’d been hit and their ship was pretty close to getting a completely new paint job, while Whiskey Romeo’s borrowed ship had a single pale yellow line down its front and Stiles was pretty positive that was just run off from Stiles’ and Hale’s. 

“Would you like to try?” Hale replied, anger coloring his voice. He apparently hated to lose as much as Stiles did. 

“And ruin our streak of getting hit?”

Stiles slapped at the radar screen uselessly. Allison or whoever was piloting the thing had somehow figured out how to aim the ship so the magnets at the bottom disrupted Stiles’ radar from a distance, and by the time it finally pinged them they were flying out of their cloud cover and pelting Stiles and Hale with another round of paintballs. In other words, Hale and Stiles were getting fucking _destroyed_.

Hale flew down towards the field Stiles and Silver had flown through in Erica’s ship, Allison and Lydia hot on their tail. Allison eased her ship effortlessly into their draft and before he knew it, Stiles could practically feel the hum of their engine running through his seat. 

“Whatever you’re doing is definitely not shaking them,” Stiles said. The missiles usually under the navigator’s control had been replaced with an automatic paintball gun similar to the one the pilots generally had under their control, but it was pretty freaking useless as long as Allison and Lydia were behind them. 

“Shut up,” Hale grit out, and Jesus tap-dancing Christ they were heading right for the barn. The thing looked about as structurally sound as a card tower, and plowing through it would definitely get Stiles impaled by a rotting beam or a horseshoe or something.

“Jesus fuck, Asshole!” Stiles yelled into the microphone when it looked like he and Hale were going to look similar to the paint smears across their ship, but Hale turned at the last second and Stiles nearly cried with relief. Of course, Whiskey Romeo turned just as easily and Hale still couldn’t get behind them. 

“Have you ever field flown before?” Stiles asked. 

Hale shook his head no, then seemed to remember that Stiles couldn’t really see his head much around his headrest and said, “Once.” 

Okay. That wasn’t great, per se, but it definitely could be a lot worse. 

“Okay, well. Fly into the weeds on the edges of the field so they can’t see the ship, then fly towards the tractor. You should be able to flip the magnets so we can attract towards the tractor, or in worst case scenario attract it towards us, and flip them again to repel at the right moment so we can get a couple shots off on Whiskey Romeo.” 

“I’m pretty sure they can see the tall weeds moving from up in the sky,” Hale said, but he followed Stiles’ directions anyway and they were low in the grass moments later. 

One of the great things about Erica’s ship compared to their current, was that it had a canopy over both the pilot’s and the navigator’s head. Flying that low in the grass without it meant being slapped in the helmet and neck with weeds, and it was disorienting at best. It took Hale by surprise a few times if the way the ship jerked every once in awhile said anything. 

“Tractor is half a clip, one o’clock,” Stiles said, and Hale flipped the magnets on and reversed. It was show time. 

Whiskey Romeo followed easily, which was kind of what Stiles was counting on. It was difficult to get them with a reverse switch if they were shooting at them from farther away. What he wasn’t counting on, however, was them being a great freaking shot through the grass. There were several more paintball hits on their frame. 

Hale flipped the magnets again and their ship shot in the opposite direct. Problem was, so did the tractor and they didn’t get nearly enough momentum to completely hit Allison and Lydia. Stiles did manage to get a wing with a red paintball, but he had been counting on at least several shots. 

“Great,” Hale said as he dove back into the grass. “What’s your great plan now? All it did was get grass in the thrusters.” 

“Stop fucking whining, Ass _Hale_.” 

“You know I’ve never heard _that_ before. Kudos for being so fucking clever.” 

Stiles bit down a smile when Hale pulled his hands away from his yoke to clap exaggeratedly where Stiles could see over Hale’s headrest. He was completely glad his face was covered with his helmet because, shit, he didn’t want to admit he was actually having some _fun_ with Hale. That was like, the anti-code to everything that ever existed. 

“You know it, Asswipe. Now I’ve got another ‘great plan’ that I came up with my ‘fucking clever’ mind so—”

“Spit it out already we’re being shot at.” 

“—shut up. But head towards the tractor again. If you’ve field flown before you’ve probably done the tractor trick so just head towards there, do your trick, and I’ll do my best to shoot at them while we’re up. You can probably speed off into the cloud covering right after because I don’t think we’re getting much else done here.” 

Hale swore lightly, but complied, and before Stiles was even finished talking they were speeding off towards where the tractor was last. It took a few seconds of reorienting themselves since the tractor had moved about a clip east of its original position, but it wasn’t difficult and soon they were practically right up on top of it. 

Hale easily flew up and performed a Immelmann turn over the tractor, and Stiles clenched his gut, took a deep breath, and aimed at their assailants once the turn straightened out.

Then missed spectacularly because apparently Allison was fucking expecting it and dodged it before it came anywhere close. 

“I bet you could make it as a hired mercenary with those skills,” Hale said, and the ship lurched upwards as he started climbing towards the cloud layer overhead. 

“Your Immelmann turn was shit so don’t blame me.” 

It wasn’t though. Almost as good as Silver’s, Stiles would say, but that could have just as much to do with Erica’s ship and the intricate pressurizers as it did Silver’s skill. Thinking that made him feel a little uneasy, like he ate too much finger food at a dinner party and it made him sick, but it was too delicious looking to leave alone. 

They took a few more hits flying up, but what was more paint to a ship already covered? If it had been real he and Hale would’ve been splats on the ground long ago. It made him pretty glad Whiskey Romeo was on their side and not on the Zurek’s.

A green paintball hit the front end of the ship and the paint dripped down into the pilot’s hole. Stiles didn’t think anything of it until the ship started swerving and shaking at random moments. 

“It’s gumming my controls,” Hale said far more calmly than Stiles would’ve thought in the circumstance, and the hairs at the base of Stiles’ neck prickled up in his helmet. He eyed the system override button a little left of the main radar, glanced at the flying controls between his legs, and then promptly stuck his sweaty palms under his thighs. 

Fuck fuck fuck, he couldn’t do this. 

“Stiles!”

The ship started descending, and Stiles looked up helplessly where Whiskey Romeo was flying in circles above them. Shit. His hand shot out to the system override button without his brain catching up. Unfortunately it figured out what his hand was doing before the button was pressed, and his fingertips hovered awkwardly above the plastic. 

“Hale, I—” Then he noticed the green track on the front of the ship. There was one single line dripping into the pilot’s hole, and almost all of it was dribbling onto Hale’s shoulder with the force of the air stream. The little drips that didn’t touch were in no way large enough to gum up _shit_.

“You are such a fucker,” Stiles growled darkly, and sat back in his seat. They weren’t going to crash at all because Hale was faking the entire thing. 

It took some nerves of steel to not piss himself or start crying, hurtling to the ground like they were, but Stiles managed it. He crossed his arms and tried to look as unaffected as possible by Hale’s little performance. 

“Stiles, we’re going to fucking _crash_.”

“No, we’re not.” 

“We’re not?” Hale asked incredulously, sarcasm heavily evident.

“Well if you’d get your thumb out of your ass and decide to fly this thing, yeah. We won’t.” 

“Did you forget about the—” Oh. So he was going to play _that_ game. 

“Gummed up systems? Hale the only bit of paint that fell into your seat is on your flight suit so don’t try and spout that shit to me.” 

“Shit,” Hale said, and sure enough the ship cut its descent and was flying level a moment later. 

“You might as well go back to The Crowned Galaxy because I don’t want to be in here with you,” Stiles said. 

Hale was silent. No back talk about Stiles being a quitter; no comment about him being pissy today; no anything. Just the gentle hum of the ship as it ascended back towards the ship. 

Allison and Lydia stopped shooting at them, but he was too pissed to see if they were coming back into The Crowned Galaxy. 

The moment Hale pulled into the hangar and the step stools were pulled up, Hale stood up and turned around without any fanfare. “What kind of useless navi can’t take control if the pilot gets knocked out,” he shouted, banging his fist against his chest like an overgrown gorilla. “We were three clips away from hitting the fucking ground. Splat. Dual-ship soup.” 

Stiles stood up too, ripping off his helmet so Hale could see the full force of the Stilinski glare, and stepped up on the seat to give himself an extra foot or so of height over Hale. 

“Maybe the one who’s compatible with a fucking terrorist. _Splat_. Beacon Hills soup.” 

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hale’s hand shot out over the space between the pilot and navigator’s holes and gripped Stiles’ right biceps, fingers a hot and heavy press through his flight suit. He may have gone a little overboard with that, but he was too angry to care. Hale faked having a control crisis. That wasn’t shit you joked about or played with. 

Stiles ripped himself away from Hale’s hand and stepped out onto the step stool, but before he could get too far Hale was straddling the lip between the stool and the pilot’s seat and yanking Stiles shoulder back, effectively keeping him there. 

“Scooter, I—” Hale started softly, and his grip lessened against Stiles shoulder. 

“I don’t know where you heard that, but you don’t get to refer to me as that,” Stiles said coolly. “Navigator or Stilinski, those are your options.” 

“Sorry, Stilinski. I. It wasn’t my idea and I thought...I didn’t know it would bother you this much. Please.” 

“I really don’t care,” Stiles said. “See you in two days.” 

And without a moment’s notice he removed Hale’s hand like he would a dirty diaper and walked down and out of the hangar, the sound of Whiskey Romeo coming in framing his exit. 

Later, he was so pissed he couldn’t bring himself to reply to the message Scott sent saying, ‘ _I heard you got whipped so bad by whiskey romeo that they ran out of paintballs._ ’

* * *

_The bombs started dropping when they were less than a hundred meters from the house. They weren’t big bombs, and most of them didn’t detonate (they were testing new ones, not that anyone knew back then), but it was enough._

_Stiles’ hands slid on the steering wheel and cool sweat started to pool in the bends of his flight suit, pulling and dragging against his chilled flesh. A bomb was heading right towards them and Stiles couldn’t do anything. He was going to die and he couldn’t make his hands turn the wheel or hell, make his feet do anything but fall heavily against the gas pedal._

_The ship took a sudden turn to the right, and Stiles stared at the wheel in his hands in confusion because he did not remember doing that. His arms were frozen and locked—he_ couldn’t _turn the wheel. But then the ship dodged another obstacle, a bit of tree, and Stiles realized his mom had switched the controls over to her end of the airbike._

_The problem was that they were faulty. The passenger flight controls had always been faulty according to his dad. And moments later the back end was slamming into a tree with a metallic crunch, and there was a warm wetness splashing across his neck, trickling down the back of his flight suit. The fact that the airbike hit something didn’t surprise Stiles, not when he knew how bad the controls stuck, but the bits of his mother’s head hitting the back of his body sure did._

_The closest neighbor they had, who was over a mile away, told him they were lucky it wasn’t a bomb that got her, ‘cause then Stiles probably would’ve been a gonner too, and they wouldn’t have had a body to bury. There were some days Stiles wished it were a bomb because at least then he wouldn’t have to know what it felt like to be the one to kill his mom._

* * *

“Scooter, get your ass over here,” was the first thing Stiles heard when he strolled into Hangar One for work. The whole place was a pulsing mess, people running everywhere, loud tools screaming, and ships coming down and off the storage wall at an increased pace. Stiles had never seen The Crowned Galaxy so disorganized and frantic. It was weird. 

It had been Silver calling him, of course, his hands deep in the guts of a dual-ship with all the stripped pieces lying in a circle around him. 

Stiles hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and rocked back onto his heels. “What’s going on?” he asked. 

Silver didn’t look up or pull his head out of the ship, but held his hand out palm up. Stiles set the wrench in his hand without thinking, and Silver grunted in gratitude. 

“We got an order to fix up as many of the ships from the stocks as we can,” Silver said finally, slamming his hands on the ship and pulling himself out from his crouched position under it. “It turns into a contest here in Hangar One—we see who can fix the most ships. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe wanted to split up so they’re together and we’re together.”

Stiles scrunched his nose up. “Why?” 

“Why are we a team?” Silver asked, and his nose twitched up like he thought he was being funny and didn’t want to burst out laughing. 

“No, you just answered that, asshole. Why are we ordered to fix all these ships right all of a sudden?”

Silver shrugged and crouched back down. “Probably have a big mission soon. The big guys like it when every ship possible is in working order for those.” 

Silver’s hand went up again and Stiles grabbed a ratchet off the floor, replaced the head, and dropped it in Silver’s upturned palm. 

“Oh,” Stiles said and went down next to Silver too. He and Hale probably wouldn’t be ready for whatever big mission that was, but Scott was, and a dark ache settled low in his gut. 

They replaced a couple of rusting parts and put the strewn pieces of the ship back on, and Silver flipped the paper that said what was wrong with it and wrote “Wolf Pack” in his small, blocky scrawl. 

“How many do we have?” Stiles asked, and he slapped their new ship to let Silver know what he was talking about. 

“I’ve done one and I have no idea how many Boyd and Erica have done,” Silver answered. 

“Oh, wow. At least _one_. I bet we’re so far ahead.” 

A dirty rag came flying at his head and Stiles caught it with a laugh before it hit him in the face. 

“Cut the crap,” Silver said darkly, and he pressed the paper detailing their orders for the ship against Stiles’ chest. He pulled back before Stiles had a hand on it, but Stiles snagged it between two fingers before it floated to the ground. 

The ship needed a new fuel line, an easy enough fix. Stiles grabbed Silver’s shoulder to indicate he was tapping him out and slid underneath. Similarly to the ship before, Stiles held his hand out and grunted, and Silver, who was straddling Stiles’ knees with a toolbox to his left, would take the old tool out and place the needed one in his palm. They finished up pretty quickly, Stiles would say, and they marked the ship as being completed by Wolf Pack. 

“You can do this one,” Stiles said as their next ship came in. It was half rusted and covered in an oozing _something_ , and there was no way The Crowned Galaxy had a ship that got that way naturally so it had to have tried to flown through swamp water, or gotten flame-thrower-ed. Something. 

“Thank you, you’re so generous,” Silver said through gritted teeth, but he got down on his knees anyway. The frame came off in his hands without any tools needed, so that was going to be fun to replace. 

Stiles took the initiative and went to grab one of the preformed metal ship frames. It was bulkier that way, but he and Derek didn’t quite have the skills with a laser gun and a blowtorch that Erica did so grabbing a straight metal sheet was not a good idea if this was a contest and all. 

When he got back he nearly dropped the frame. Silver had opened something up and was just covered in some sort of black-blue ooze. If it was possible to look sexy, like a drowned wet cat, and like he’d tried to go swimming in a swampy tar pit all at once, Silver was definitely the closest thing to it. Even the glare he shot at Stiles when he burst out laughing and fumbled the frame was weak.

The good news was, whatever Silver was covered in didn’t burst into flames when they got out the blowtorch to attach the new frame, and the better news was that the rust didn’t go all the way through. A few parts had to be replaced, but the majority of the ship was in working condition and they were able to slap another Wolf Pack label onto the finished product. 

Because Silver was still sort of a goopy dripping mess, Stiles got the job of reading the details sheet when their next project came in. That didn’t stop Silver from trying to read over his shoulder, and after the sixth unsuccessful swat to keep him from mouth breathing into the side of Stiles’ neck, he just let it happen. 

“This should never have made it out of electronics,” Silver said, and Stiles tried not to wince too obviously when some of the goo dripped off Silver and onto his uniform.

It definitely shouldn’t have, considering that all the paper said was that the radio was messed up, and Stiles quite frankly didn’t know shit about the inner workings of radios. He knew how to turn them on and talk/receive messages, and just sort of assumed the guys and girls up in broadcasting knew how to do everything else. 

“Well, do you know how to fix this?” 

Silver snorted and snatched the paper out of Stiles’ hand. Stiles tried not to protest since it was kind of too late to complain about the nasty goo on the paper after it had already been put there. 

“The fact that Wolfsbane knows how is kind of an anomaly, and he only knows because his sister liked it and didn’t want to learn it by herself.”

Stiles grunted as if he understood, but he really didn’t. Not really. He never had any siblings and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t keep up with something just so they wouldn’t be alone, but then again he did used to eat all the grape flavored popsicles when he and Scott were kids just because Scott didn’t like them (though he didn’t like them much either).

“So do we just...leave it then?”

Silver shook his head no. “Depending on how the majority wants to do the rules this year, we could have the ship ‘stolen’ from us, get a negative ship to added to our final score, or be disqualified. And before you ask, no we can’t just give it to Wolfsbane.” 

“So what _do_ we do?”

Instead of answering like a normal person, Silver shoved the paper in his (freaking nasty, c’mon Silver) pockets and did his usual jerky follow-me gesture with his shoulder. Stiles rolled his eyes but followed anyway without complaint. The guy was lucky Stiles was so fond of him and his dumb body language. 

Silver led them out of the hangar and down a hallway that Stiles wasn’t sure he had actually ever been in. The hallway was lined with heavy metal doors and at the very end of it was a screen with an I.D. swipe, code punch, and what looked like a little change collecting device. Silver walked right up to the screen and entered his information before typing something into touch screen. He entered his code again and a little key fell into the little metal change-collecting scoop out of a hole Stiles hadn’t noticed above it. 

Silver made his dumb follow me gesture again, and walked to a door on the right and unlocked it, the bolts in the door groaning and clanking together as the mechanism released. 

“Hold this,” Silver said, and Stiles grabbed the door while Silver darted inside. He nearly fell over in surprise with how much it weighed, but then again it had been held shut and locked by several thick, metal dowels. 

From what he could tell, the room was covered head-to-toe in books and thick parchment. It was too close to the hangar to conceivably be any kind of records, but who was Stiles to know for sure. 

The sound of paper flipping filled the air and after a minute or two, Silver made a small noise that was more affirming than a-ha. “Do you remember if the paper said it was the connection between broadcast to radio, radio to radio, or the radio to helmet that was messed up?” he said after a moment, and Stiles shifted his grip on the door to give his left hip a rest. 

“You’re the one with the details paper in your pocket.” 

There was some rustling of clothing and a muffled curse. Probably not good then. 

“So _do_ you remember?” 

Stiles sighed and let his head fall back into the door. A lesson learned in not putting paper into wet and gross pockets. 

“I can try,” he answered, but honestly he had no freaking clue what was on that paper anymore. 

“Well, was there a broadcast to radio, radio to radio, or helmet to radio symbol on the page?”

“I don’t know what those look like.”

“Was there a triangle looking wave with a mouth and a...snake? Next to it. Or two boxes with triangle waves between them? Or was it more of a round looking box with a triangle next to it?” 

“Was it a…?” Stiles squeezed the bridge of his nose. There was no way he could interpret what Silver was saying, let alone remember if any of those things were on the paper. Stiles picked himself up off the door and went into the room to at least look at the symbols Silver was trying to describe. 

“Let me,” he said, marching over and reaching over Silver’s back for the book in Silver’s hand, when a distinct clanging noise rang through the air, followed by a heavier metal grinding noise. That couldn’t have been good. 

“Fuck!” Silver breathed, his back to Scooter still. “You didn’t. Tell me you _didn’t._ ”

“I didn’t,” Stiles offered helplessly, and Silver sort of overdramatically crouched on the floor with the book still in his hand. What a drama king. 

“I want you to look over at the door and tell me why this is a problem and you should’ve held the door like I asked.” 

Stiles turned enough to run his eyes up and down it a couple times, but he didn’t see what Silver was so...Oh. There wasn’t a door knob on their side. 

They were kind of fucked then. 

“What do we do now?”

“Hope someone needs a manual and sees that there’s a key in the door, or wait until the archive managers come in tonight to check inventory,” Silver grumbled, his voice getting lower and slower as the sentence went on, like he was trying to hold onto his sanity by controlling one thing. 

“Maybe we should try and figure out what the symbols were, while we’re stuck in here,” Stiles suggested, and one side of Silver’s mouth pulled tight. 

“Be my guest,” Silver said, standing up, and he dug around in his pockets to pull out a soggy, wet piece of paper, which he handed to Stiles.

Stiles held it delicately between his fingers. The ink wasn’t running or anything, but the ooze that had gotten all over Silver was dark in color and made a lot of the words indecipherable. As a kid, Stiles had played this detective boardgame where clues were hidden behind red ink. When he or another player got to certain parts in the game, he got to use a magnifying glass with a red lens that canceled out the red ink so he could see the clues behind it. Trying to decipher the ship details paper was like the opposite of that—the ink was the same color as the magnifying lens too so all he saw was black smudges across the page. It didn’t stop him from trying though, and after a while Silver leaned closer to try and figure it out too. 

It was still unsuccessful.

“Jesus Christ, this is fucking hopeless,” Silver said, the frustration from the puzzle that was the soggy paper adding to the anger he’d felt earlier. It was present in his voice, and like a child he turned around and crouched on the floor again, head in his hands.

Stiles shifted onto his heels and winced a little bit when his knees brushed Silver’s back. He hadn’t realized it when he was outside holding the door, but the room was really freaking small. Sure, there was plenty of room upward—he could be twice as tall and still have ceiling room—but after the bookshelves were added there was really only about a five by five space. At least from the chill in the room he could tell there was a working air exchange system so it wasn’t like they were going to suffocate. 

“Dear old Santa Claus isn’t going to bother you, right?” Stiles asked and laughed a little nervously. 

“Dear old… _What_ , Stiles?” Silver turned his head enough to narrow his eyes and glare over his shoulder at Stiles, and Stiles scratched his neck sheepishly under his gaze.

“Claustrophobia? Sorry, it was a poor joke.”

Silver stood up and turned to face Stiles, and Stiles pressed himself against the bookshelf behind him to make space. Damn they really were close together.

“The only joke here is the one the universe is playing on me. Being stuck in a storeroom with you?”

“Wow, you must have had done something really bad recently,” Stiles deadpanned, but he was grinning so it probably didn’t have the effect it should have. “I’m the worst.” 

“No, you’re _insufferable_ ,” Silver corrected, his lips twitching up into a grin. 

Stiles pulled himself up off the shelf so he was upright and no longer leaning on it. “A pain in your ass?” 

“You got that right.” Silver was fully grinning then, and something in Stiles’ stomach twisted. He hadn’t seen him smile like that—full on sunbeam—for a while. Not since before Stiles fucked it up in his room on the anniversary of Hale and Kate Argent’s super happy fun time bomb day anyway.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward per se, or even uncomfortable, but Stiles was pretty positive that had been Silver’s special brand of flirting. Or he hoped it was. He seemed to be doing a lot of it lately and Stiles didn’t want to be reading into things and getting his hopes up or anything, but he definitely was. His head was a churning mess of he-maybe-does and he’s-too-good-for-you, and his heart just wanted to jump right in (and his dick, but that had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with how attractive everyone on the entire freaking ship was).

“I’m sorry I locked us in here on accident,” Stiles said softly in some sort of attempt to break his thoughts up. Being locked in a small space with Silver was not a good time to analyze his feelings. 

His heart felt like it was going to thump out of his chest, and his lungs felt heavy and full of fear, like he was drowning. 

Silver bit his lip and looked down to his left. “I’m sorry I put the details in my pocket and ruined them,” he said with a shrug after a second or two, and he brought his eyes up to Stiles’ chest level. 

“It’s okay,” Stiles said breathily, voice lower than he would’ve thought, and Silver’s eyes jumped up to Stiles’ mouth, lips parting to take in one shaky breath. The air in the room went heavy and charged, and the bottom dropped out of Stiles’ gut. His hand twitched at his side, yearning to reach out and touch Silver’s stupid smelly goo covered handsome and muscular self. 

He took an impulsive step forward, his body willing him to do something before his brain and his fears could catch up and shut him down, and Silver reacted almost subconsciously, his body angling towards Stiles’ approach. It was only the one step, but holy _shit_. 

Stiles swallowed carefully. Did he…? Did Silver want him to…? He thought his heart was going to jump clear out of his chest. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. 

Silver snorted softly, like he found something funny, and raised his arm to press his warm, callused hand against the part of Stiles’ wrist left exposed by his uniform. It was light, almost fleeting, and shaking a little, and Stiles pressed his wrist in closer. He didn’t even care that he was getting more freaking ship sludge on himself.

“Do you—” Silver started, then snorted again and shut his mouth with a sharp clack. 

They were close enough that Stiles could feel Silver’s breath across his face as he spoke, and Stiles thought he could...he could definitely pull up the courage to do something about it. He did that one time in the academy with Heather, and with the guy in radio on his first ship, but those were more-than-one night stands and fun little flings. This seemed serious and shit, and Stiles had very little experience with serious. 

He took in a deep breath, steeled himself, and—

 _knock, knock_. “Yo, anyone in there?” 

—flung himself back into the shelf, nailing his funny bone on the corner of a book (which what the _fuck_ , weren’t books supposed to be softer than feeling like he reamed steel?). 

“ _Ow_ ,” Stiles shouted, and his other arm went immediately to try and comfort his pain. As if rubbing it would somehow keep the tingles from shooting up his arm, but bodies were weird. 

“Yeah, we’re in here,” Silver said, and he’d somehow turned himself away from Stiles so his shoulder was towards him in the time it took for Stiles to jump back and hurt himself. 

The door opened a second later, and Silver barely even looked at him when he stiffly walked out. That may have hurt worse than hitting his funny bone, to be honest, but he swallowed it down and followed Silver back into the hangar.

* * *

As expected, being stuck in one of the manual archive rooms for an hour or so really cut down on ship-fixing time, so Stiles and Silver lost pretty spectacularly. Boyd and Erica did alright, well enough to bring up Stiles and Silver’s score for sure, but the rules this time apparently were that groups that split up into teams couldn’t combine points. Stiles argued that into the ground because it was complete bullshit, but the winning team, a pair of twins from a group named Alpha, had winner’s rights and shut him down with utter nonsense. 

All in all, it was pretty fun though. 

Because of the strongly worded discussion (read: argument), he was running a little late to his simulation test with Hale that night. Not late enough that he needed to run or anything—a fast paced walk was fine—but still enough to be worrisome. He and Hale were already pretty tense from the flight exercise, and that had been a while ago.

Hale wasn’t there though, so his hurrying was kind of unnecessary, but whatever. There was a restless energy buzzing in his gut, and he couldn’t seem to get himself mad when that was running free in his insides. 

He was in the middle of telling Danielle about Peter, and how thankful he was that he wasn’t there that night (she totally agreed, even if she was a little dazzled by his face sometimes too), when Hale finally ran in, panting up a storm behind his flight suit helmet. 

“Nice of you to show up, Hale,” he said, his lips turning up into an easy grin. Hale startled back, and to be honest, so did Stiles a little bit. He didn’t think he was in _that_ good of a mood. 

But they moved on and Hale and Stiles got into their positions in the simulator. It was at that time that Stiles looked up and saw a grey wife beater on Hale’s back poking out from under his half unzipped flight suit. He’d only seen that much of Hale uncovered once, and it was kind of disorienting to say the least. A little distracting. 

Stiles surprised himself again when he reached forward and tapped Hale’s shoulder. “Hey, your flight suit’s undone in the back. Let me get that for you.” 

Hale stood up woodenly and leaned back so Stiles could reach him. He smelled faintly of apples again so he must’ve just come out of the shower, and his muscles were warm and coiled under Stiles’ palm, like a snake about to strike. But Stiles took a deep breath and reached into that warm, excited buzzing in his gut to keep from freaking out as he dragged the zipper up. He could do this, and maybe, just maybe, he could do this with Hale.

They sat down slowly, booted up the simulation, and quite frankly, _rocked the fuck out of it_ with a seven-point-seven. For the first time in his life, Stiles could almost taste the dual-ship team possibilities himself.

* * *

‘ _do you have time to talk_ ’

Stiles locked his screen and set his wrist link on his lap, message sent. He was three-tenths of a point off from the magic number, and the reality was starting to hit Stiles. He was going to be a navigator, an official working navigator, in a short time. Three-tenths? That was practically nothing. He and Hale started out at five flat, and now… Now he was almost elite level, and fuck, he couldn’t tell if the churning in his stomach was excitement or if he was about to shit himself out of fear. It was real, tangible, and within his sights. 

A few seconds later Scott replied, ‘ _a little!_ ’

They decided to meet in the viewing room. Mostly because it was simple and Scott didn’t feel like going to a bar when he couldn’t drink (he had a mission the next day for sure, so there was no room for talking him into it either), but also because Stiles felt like the universe needed to witness their conversation. Closer to God and all that, right?

Scott hugged him as soon as he got there, and Stiles sunk into it. How did he survive so many years without his best friend? That was a good fucking question, that was for sure, but then again life on the edge, as a potential dual-ship team, was a lot more stressful than anything he’d done in the past eight years. 

“You looked stoned or upset, and you know you’re required to share at least one of those things with your best friend,” Scott said into his shoulder, and pulled back out of the hug. 

“Not really either of those things,” Stiles shrugged. “Just starting to realize that I’m way out of my element.”

Scott sat down onto the bench behind him, and patted the space next to him with a grin. Stiles came down embarrassingly easy, and just sort of sunk into Scott’s heat. It wasn’t anything more than their shoulders and legs touching, but it was comfortable.

“You said you’re close to becoming an official dual-ship navigator, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed. “A seven-point-seven.”

Scott swung his arm up around Stiles and sort of half-hugged and jostled him. “That’s great! We can go out on missions together, and have non-drinking slumber parties all the time in each other’s rooms, and complain about our dual-ship partners when they do something dumb like leave their gross socks on your side of the room.”

Stiles found his lips pulling up a little with Scott’s words. His excitement was ridiculously contagious.

“Yeah, but I’m…” Stiles trailed off and turned his head to press his lips into Scott’s shoulder for a moment to gather his thoughts. Scared. He was scared. It was like a haunted house ride setup at Halloween. He knew where he was going, he knew the basics of what would happen, but he didn’t know what or when something was going to jump out and make him piss his pants. The future was uncertain, and hell, Stiles didn’t know if he was going to make it out of that haunted house alive. 

“It’s just. Scott, tonight when we were in that ship I didn’t even care that it was Hale. It was natural, okay, and I guess it just...I’m compatible with a fucking _terrorist_. For real. We’re practically at an eight so it’s not like I can pretend it’s just a speed bump I have to deal with towards becoming a navigator—it’s real.”

Scott increased the pressure on his shoulder, and Stiles realized his shoulders were tense and nearly touching his ears. He swallowed, and let them relax into Scott’s gentle hands. 

“Stiles, you’re almost at elite level. That’s what it feels like. You’ll start to notice that you’re doing the same things at the same time, and you’ll be able to read your partner like no one else. Like, I can’t tell you the number of times me and Isaac have gotten up to poop at the same time. Our _bowels_ are synced. And I know when Isaac’s feeling upset and needs a hug, or is pissed and wants to be by himself, and the only difference between those faces is how high his eyebrows are raised. I don’t know if I can say that it’s love you feel with your partner, but it’s hard to imagine not being one of two. Man, you know I love you bro, but with Isaac it feels like I’m a part of him and he’s a part of me and if either of us dies we both die. And we’re just nines. Allison and Lydia are ten times more connected.” 

Scott’s hand had trailed down Stiles’ back and had started rubbing small circles while he spoke, but unfortunately it hadn’t really soothed Stiles to the extent he’d like. It was just, being in sync, feeling like one connected person with Derek Hale? He’d seen how Scott and Isaac interacted, how Allison and Lydia interacted, and Stiles couldn’t imagine that with him. He was at ease earlier that night, but anything else seemed fucking terrifying.

“Yeah, but Scott it’s _Derek Hale_. Your best friend is compatible like that with a terrorist. Capital letters, underlined, _terrorist_. What if I start getting those urges? I mean you said yourself you start doing the same things.”

Scott hummed, and his rubbing paused so he could tap lightly at Stiles’ back while he thought. “It’s not—it’s not like a mind meld thing. You can’t read his mind and he can’t read yours. You just know, understand, and adapt. And man, you’re my best friend, my brother, and I love you. I may not like what I know about Derek Hale very much, but if he’s compatible with you I don’t think he can be that bad.” 

It wasn’t exactly what Stiles wanted to hear, but unless Scott could promise him he had another guy or girl that would be a perfect ten with Stiles and that Hale was out of there, Stiles didn’t think he was going to hear anything great. Scott was so trusting, maybe a little too trusting as far as Stiles was concerned, but it was nice having someone like that at your back. Scott wouldn’t let him get hurt, and he for sure wouldn’t let Stiles pull away.

“Maybe we can joke and talk over the radio during a supply line bombing run and annoy the shit out of Hale,” Stiles said. 

Scott smiled widely and held out his other hand for Stiles to fist bump. “Yeah, bros before partner-os!”

Stiles bumped him back without looking and was both surprised and thrilled that they still had the no-look fist bumps down pat. He stretched up out from under Scott’s arm, and Scott let it fall away easily. That was enough serious conversation time. 

“So, enough about me. What about you?” 

Scott leaned back as far as he could without falling off the bench, and tapped his free hand against his thigh. “Nothin’ much really. Like I said I’ve got a mission tomorrow, and it’s a bit of a doozy. Guess they got tired of giving me and Isaac easy level fours because we’ve got a level two danger rating tomorrow. Direct contact with the enemy, but small enough that we won’t die probably.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Stiles said, and he reached forward enough to squeeze Scott’s knee. Back when they were fresh faced and on their first ships, Scott got a level two with Isaac. He was all nervous energy and heroic pride back then, bouncing and jiggling in his seat so much that the comscreen couldn’t really track his facial features except for his wide smile. Now he seemed so reserved. Eight years did that though, he guessed. 

“Yeah,” Scott breathed. “It’s not barren here in the edge. There’s trees and life and small towns, and I guess this one just hits too close to home. We’re so close to one of ‘em and I’m worried about any ammo that misses and plummets into their playgrounds, or shrapnel that falls into their houses. That used to be us, y’know? Back when the conflict was still on the southern edge anyway.”

Stiles swallowed and forcibly relaxed his hand. He was surprised Scott hadn’t complained or made a noise at how tight his grip had been. 

“Yeah, my dad made us fix your roof so many times because he didn’t want your mom to worry about it on top of her job.” 

“And my mom yelled at us every time because she didn’t want us so close to the sky,” Scott said. 

“Yeah.” 

They had small smiles on their faces. They weren’t really happy grins since those times weren’t exactly anything to be happy about, but nostalgic ones. For all the shit they’d gone through when the edge was only a handful of clips northwest of their town, there were a couple of good memories mixed in, and in hindsight once they’d made it out okay, some were pretty funny. 

Stiles squeezed Scott’s knee purposefully once or twice. “We made it out though, Scott. We went to the academy so we could keep it from happening to anyone else, and if anyone can save them and keep them safe, it’s you, Scott.”

The grin that bloomed across Scott’s face was far happier than anything he’d seen in a long time. “Thanks, I—Thank you.” 

They just sort of sat there smiling helplessly at each other for a while, until Scott cleared his throat and said, “Dude if we keep having these conversations our stoic card’s gonna get revoked and we’ll be offered membership to the sappy club.” 

“I think best friends get a pass on that kind of thing.” 

“Yeah, well, we need to talk about some more awesome feelings instead of our inner fears, dude. Like how amazing the cherry pie at the dessert table was today, holy shit it was love at first bite.” 

“Didn’t get to eat it,” Stiles said mournfully. He was kind of trapped in a storage room at the time, which, speaking of. “I think maybe hot boss might want to bone me back, though.” 

Okay, so there were definitely some inner fears involved in that, but Scott didn’t know just how much more to the story there was than just _wanting to bone_. He knew Stiles thought hot boss was hot and that Stiles thought he felt the same way back. The feelings part of it was where it got muddled a bit. 

“Dude,” Scott said and offered his fist for another bro bump. Stiles removed his hand from Scott’s knee to return it.

And Stiles, maybe Stiles was going to be just fine.

* * *

**Compatibility 9.3**

* * *

Working around Silver was easy and smooth. It wasn’t perfect, for one they were ignoring the whole trapped-together-in-a-manual-archive-the-size-of-a-closet thing, though every once in awhile Stiles brought up a Seven Minutes in Heaven joke that made Erica burst out laughing (even though she didn’t know the extent of the truth) and Silver go quiet and focus on his work; but Stiles felt comfortable, at ease. 

There were times he’d start to feel thirsty and have a water bottle flying at his head courtesy of one grumpy Silver. The first couple times he barely caught it before it nailed him in the face, and they started a dialogue for it. He could catch it pretty easily by now, a few days later, but he’d still complain about it almost hitting his head, and Silver would tell him he should stop projecting his thirst everywhere and maybe it wouldn’t happen.  

It was a mutual thing though. Stiles got thirsty a lot, but Silver was diligent about keeping his hands clean. It was kind of ridiculous considering their job, and even more so since Silver was prone to getting his hands dirtier than any other mechanic Stiles had ever known, but Stiles started keeping an extra rag in his pocket just for Silver when his inevitably got so dirty it only smeared things around. 

For all that they had made 7.7, Derek wasn’t much different. They were still a little tense at best, even with the glaring neon _almost elitely compatible_ sign hovering just above their heads, but it was kind of easier. In the two or three days they’d met up since they scored the seven-point-seven, it was starting to feel like he knew Derek, recognizing little body language twists and turns and the way he’d start his sentences, and it made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t place it, but something was niggling in the back of his mind that would come in sharp, hard bursts that left him breathless when he couldn’t figure it out.

* * *

The warning alarms signalling a mission gone wrong rang through the hangar, piercing through the layer of noise always present in the room. Stiles froze immediately, the ratchet in his hand falling to the ground with a clatter. No, no, the warning alarms could not possibly be ringing. There was nothing wrong with the ships coming back today. No one was missing, no one was destroyed. It couldn’t be. 

Because Scott was coming back today. 

The hangar doors groaned and shifted in preparation for opening, and Stiles stood up. It felt like his body was still crouched by the dual-ship he was working on, while his spirit rose on. His breath caught in his throat as he watched ten ships filter in in passable condition. Twelve ships had gone on the mission and Charlie Kilo was one of the missing. 

But then, another ship came into the gravitational pull, and Stiles took in a single shaky breath. 

It was Whiskey Romeo. Worse for wear and definitely in need of a ton of work, if not a complete rehaul, but the pilot was clearly in green while the navigator wore pink. The ship may have been unrecognizable but that was definitely the Whiskey Romeo team. 

Stiles swallowed and tried to be thankful that Whiskey Romeo made it, but fuck it, he wanted Charlie Kilo. His eyes prickled but no tears would come. He was in too much disbelief. 

Whiskey Romeo didn’t land—wouldn’t land. Allison wasn’t turning on her magnets to guide her down and her thrusters were still blasting hard, raising Whiskey Romeo towards the ceiling. Great. Charlie Kilo was gone and...and Whiskey Romeo was fucked up enough that it couldn’t land. 

Lydia ripped off her helmet and dropped it over the side of the ship, which was fucking _stupid_ because if Whiskey Romeo’s magnets were screwed up they were going to have to do a drop down landing and the bottom of the ship was going to get slammed; helmets kept concussion risk to a minimum. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted over the roar of the engine. “Don’t shut the door! And turn off your receptor magnets, we’re losing them.” 

“Losing what?” one of the door operators shouted from the main operation podium. 

“Charlie Kilo,” was her reply, and Stiles’ gut nearly leapt out of his mouth. Charlie Kilo? Scott was okay?

“Em-Off!” The guy at the operation podium shouted into his microphone, and the floor underneath the grounded ships opened up for the risers to hold the ships in their raised places when the magnets were officially shut off. Then a moment later, a buzzing groan echoed through the air and the ships fell into their support mechanisms. 

Immediately after the magnetic interference was removed, Charlie Kilo—or what was left of it—rose into view. Its thrusters were off, the wings mangled, and the entire front end of the ship was a gnarled metallic mess. And Scott was in there. Holy fuck, Scott had to be in that twisted wreck. 

The moment Whiskey Romeo switched their landing magnets around to their actual landing function and Charlie Kilo slammed down with a painful clang, Isaac leapt out of the ship, not waiting for someone to bring him the step stool, and threw his helmet at the ground. Stiles tried not to be bitter that he was okay, he really did, but clearly something was wrong with Scott and that wasn’t okay. Not in the least. 

“You had to try and save those fucking kids,” Isaac shouted, his voice hoarse and his eyes wild. He kicked the ship hard enough for the noise to fill the room and fell onto his knees by his seat. “You stupid fucker,” he added more softly, and Stiles only just heard it through the roar in his ears. 

Isaac didn’t move, and neither did anything in the area Scott had to be. The blankness in Stiles’ head and the pinpricks in his eyes were back and sharper than ever. He couldn’t lose Scott. It was impossible for Scott to be anything but good ol’ happy, cheerful, and supportive Scott, and he couldn’t be that if he was gone. 

A heavy warmth rested on his shoulder, pulling him back stiffly, and Stiles hadn’t even known he’d been moving towards Charlie Kilo. 

“Let them do their job,” Silver’s soft voice said into the back of his neck. 

“Let who…?” Stiles said breathlessly, and Silver manipulated his shoulder with his hand until Stiles focused in and saw the med team running around Charlie Kilo with their equipment. Two or three of them pulled out a laser gun and started cutting away pieces of metal, while the others prepped the gurney and a possible workspace. 

The screaming—hoarse and uncontrolled—started after the first piece of metal was removed from the ship, and it took Stiles a minute to realize that the horrible screech was not from the tools the med team was using on the ship. He was ashamed to admit that his first thought wasn’t _Scott’s hurt and he needs help_ , but _shit, Scott’s alive_. 

He tried to shrug off Silver’s hand and run over because _fucking hell Scott was in pain_ , but Silver wasn’t having it. He squeezed tight enough that Stiles’ shoulder curled inwards towards his head to try and soothe the pain, and Silver pulled him tight against his chest when Stiles finally collapsed a little. 

“Let them do their job,” Silver repeated harder this time but still just as open, and Stiles couldn’t appreciate that Silver was basically hugging him for the first time ever, his chest a boiling wall against Stiles’ back. 

Stiles made some sort of noise because he felt his vocal chords pull taught in his throat, but he couldn’t actually tell what he said over the worry clouding his brain. He watched Allison and Lydia basically frog march Isaac away from the wreckage. The Whiskey Romeo team looked solemn but determined, and Isaac just looked distraught. He was flushed and crying, tears streaming down his face like someone had punched through the dam holding them back, and Stiles felt weak in comparison. Scott was screaming and hurt, and Stiles couldn’t even muster up a couple of tears. 

The med team did their business, and the gurney went by with Scott on it minutes later. All noise had stopped so suddenly that Stiles was pulling against Silver’s hold as best he could to try and see Scott’s face as it rolled past—it couldn’t have been awful since Isaac was still snuffling somewhat calmly by the ship, but Stiles was still panicked. Scott’s eyes were glassy and unfocused so they must have given him something for the pain, and when Stiles mustered up enough happy memories to shoot him a half-grin, Scott didn’t react. Stiles couldn’t see what the med team had hidden under the sheet they draped over his lower half, but he could tell from how pale Scott was that it wasn’t anything good. 

_Fuck._ Stiles felt hollow, drained. Someone had pulled away his bark and cut out his insides and Stiles couldn’t muster up the feelings to care that he was nothing but an empty tree.

Silver didn’t let go until the med team had left and the Charlie Kilo wreckage was cleared out. He wanted to follow the gurney, dress up in sterile gowns and watch the on-ship surgeons fix whatever was wrong with Scott just to make sure that he was okay, and that they treated him the best way possible, but Silver held on tight. If he had to hear ‘ _let them do their job_ ’ one more time he’d…well he wouldn’t know what he’d do. But they hadn’t even let Isaac follow, and Lord had he’d tried. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Silver said softly in Stiles’ ear, and Stiles’ jaw snapped shut with a click. He hadn’t known it was open in the first place. 

“Where,” he asked in lieu of a reply. If he couldn’t be by Scott’s side, Stiles wanted to stay right there and work until his brain shut off and his fingers were numb.

Silver sighed and grabbed Stiles shoulder again, but gently this time. “C’mon,” he said and did his stupid follow-me gesture. And Stiles found himself stepping forward without realizing it, Silver’s quiet smile coaxing him forward.

He took them to Hangar Six, moderately empty but with a few mini-ships coming in, and walked towards the supply closet. Silver handed him a grungy flight suit and made to dress Stiles in it, but Stiles put his hand up to stop him. He could dress himself.

It was fairly obvious what Silver was planning since flight suits and Hangar Six could only really mean one thing, but Silver still pulled off the drop cloth hanging over Erica’s ship with a flourish and a smile, like he was revealing something special. 

“Did you ask Erica if you could use her ship?”

Stiles picked at the flight suit fabric above his hip where it pulled too tightly, and Silver’s shoulders went stiff.

“She’ll understand.” 

Silver may have known Erica longer, but that was her _ship_ , her baby. Stiles couldn’t see her just letting them take it out.

Silver’s grin drooped, and his hands clenched around the metal surrounding the pilot’s hole. “Look, she asked me a day or so ago if we could test her ship out again and now seemed like a good time.”

“We have work. We should _still be_ at work.”

“It’s fine. I can handle that.” 

Stiles ran his palm down his thigh and pressed his lips together. The guy had a single in the most protected block on the ship so he didn’t exactly doubt that he could handle it, but it wasn’t about that. “I don’t want to fly on the ship, Silver. I want to go back to work.” 

Silver’s eyes dropped down to the floor. “No you don’t,” he said quietly, then raised his eyes to meet Stiles’. “You want to work until the pain in your body keeps you from thinking about Scott, so I’m offering an alternative.” 

Stiles was pressing Silver up against Erica’s ship, a hand spread flat against the center of his chest, before he knew it, and judging by the ease Silver fell into it, he was just as surprised. “You’re not my keeper, Silver,” he grit out, heart thumping away in his chest. 

Silver took a single long breath and Stiles’ hand rose with the movement. His fingertips jolted forward to dig into Silver’s flight suit a little, but his hold eased up until he was just resting his palm on Silver’s chest. 

“I know,” Silver breathed, and his face contorted into some sort of pinched form before sorting itself out into a blank, unreadable slate. “But it’s not—hurting yourself isn’t going to help. The only thing you can do is wait and working yourself up only makes it worse in the end.” 

Stiles snorted. “Who are you, Mister Experienced?” He needed answers, and right then all he had was the knowledge that Scott was hurt and had had a sheet covering his lower half, and that Silver was trying to police his coping mechanisms.

Silver’s eyelids faltered during a blink, and the entire column of his throat shifted when he swallowed. Realization hit Stiles hard in the gut, and his hand fell away from Silver.

“Shit, _really_?” he found himself asking, and Silver’s shoulders hunched forward, curling in towards Stiles. 

“Yeah, I,” Silver began, his voice wavering, and he shut his mouth sharply. “My sister. She had a, um, disagreement with my—Peter, and he sent her ship out on a level two mission by themselves. They pulled her navigator out in pieces, and Laura, she, uh…”

Silver trailed off with a nervous intake of air, and as soft as he’d said it, Stiles wasn’t sure he’d picked up most of the words.

When Silver didn’t add anything, just sort of slumped against the ship and looked down at their feet between them, Stiles swallowed around tightness threatening to block his throat, and reached forward to lightly grab Silver’s wrist, where the little bit of skin between his borrowed flight suit and gloves was exposed. He meant for it to comfort Silver, but as keyed up as Stiles felt, the warmth and rough skin under Stiles’ fingers calmed him a little too.

Silver startled at the contact, but didn’t pull out of Stiles’ hand, and when Silver met his eyes Stiles tightened his grip. His wrist was warm and his pulse was going rabbit fast under Stiles’ fingertips, and Stiles watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said, and Silver sighed, his breath brushing past Stiles’ lips. Stiles barely kept himself from licking them in response. They were so close together. Heat pooled in his belly, churning with nerves and fear more than anything else, but a little bit of excitement too.

“No, I’m sorry,” Silver said, his voice low and catching mid sentence, and his eyes dropped to Stiles’ lips for a second. Holy _fuck_.

Stiles’ heartbeat picked up and he was sure Silver could tell since Stiles himself could feel Silver’s against his chest. On a rush of courage, Stiles pushed forward, hoping and praying to whatever God would listen that Stiles was reading this right. 

His lips missed their mark by a little bit, and Silver must have had his mouth open because Stiles’ bottom lip slipped into his mouth. For a startling second or two, Silver froze and Stiles wanted a hole to open up underneath him and send him hurtling towards the earth out of embarrassment, but then Silver let out a quiet breath and tilted his head until their lips were pressed firmly against each other and Stiles’ mind went blank. 

Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Silver _did_ want to bone him.

It was an utterly chaste kiss, no more than lips touching and heavy breath skittering across their mouths. Their faces were so close Stiles could feel the hard outlines of Silver’s teeth behind his lips, but they couldn’t bring themselves to pull back enough for a gentler kiss—hard was what Stiles needed to focus on something other than Scott’s condition. Silver’s shoulders shook between Stiles and Erica’s ship, and Stiles’ hand was clenched so tight around Silver’s wrist it must’ve hurt, but it kept him from shaking. 

Silver sighed against Stiles’ mouth, naturally ending the kiss, and they pulled back. 

“There’s another way you could distract me,” Stiles said. He might regret it later if Scott, no _when_ , Scott was okay since he’d have been fooling around while Scott was hurt, but the option was so much more attractive than anything else Silver offered.

His eyes were firmly on Silver’s lips, so he noticed immediately when they pulled into a tight grimace and Silver tensed beneath him. “I can’t,” Silver whispered, and Stiles jerked away from him, incredulous. 

_Fuck._ He hadn’t read that correctly, then. But what the hell had that been then? A pity kiss? ‘Stiles’ best friend’s hurt so I’ll just mack on him right back if he goes for kiss but really he’s a fugly motherfucker’?

The bottom dropped out of Stiles’ stomach and he wanted to throw up. Great, so Scott was hurt and he’d managed to figure out that Silver didn’t want him after all. What an amazing day it was turning out to be; working himself to the bone seemed like a better option already.

He turned to remove himself from the hangar and head back to Hangar One for work, but Silver caught him by the shoulder with a firm hand. Stiles flinched under the heat of it and his gut rolled harshly. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Silver said, and it was only the helpless pinched look in his eyes that kept Stiles from retorting. “I’m not…I can’t just.” Silver’s mouth hung loose like he was going to add something else, but nothing but air came out. 

Stiles shifted from one foot to the other and shrugged slightly up into Silver’s hand. “You don’t want to be a distraction,” Stiles mumbled into his chest, taking pity on Silver’s inability to put words together. The sentence could mean anything really—he didn’t want to have sex with Stiles, he didn’t like casual sex or Stiles, or maybe, he wanted to be something more than a distraction for Stiles, and Stiles didn’t let his heart settle too much on the latter, just in case. 

Silver’s hand tightened around his shoulder, and Stiles looked back up at his face. 

“Yeah, I would like to—I go slow, but I’m interested. Please know that.” 

Silver was flushed, the red on his cheeks framed by his stupid sexy facial hair, and he wasn’t looking straight at Stiles, but somewhere off to his left. Stiles didn’t get it at first, and he blinked slowly as the hand on his shoulder trembled. For all that Silver said and did, Stiles wanted to squash the hope in his stomach down because he surely heard what he wanted to hear, not what was actually said. But then seconds went by and he realized; the uncertainty in his gut bloomed into something warm and unidentifiable, and Stiles suddenly couldn’t keep a smile off his face. 

His hand crept up to rest on Silver’s shoulder, even though it put his wrist and elbow at an uncomfortable angle, and Silver’s eyes shot to it like he’d said the magic words or something. 

“I’d like that,” he said, and Silver’s hand stilled, though Stiles swore he could feel his heartbeat, fast but steady. “Do you wanna talk—”

Silver cut him off with a shake of his head and Stiles’ eyebrows drew together. 

“I don’t want to do this when you’re upset about Scott,” Silver said, and he looked like he was going to add something else but stopped. 

And that sounded dumb. It wasn’t on Scott or the dark pit in his stomach over Scott’s current predicament to determine his relationship status, and he could consent without it, but there was something hooded and soft in Silver’s eyes that kept him from saying anything. He didn’t want to spend his first, maybe potentially serious feelings _thing_ arguing about whether or not they should have a conversation about their potentially serious feelings right that moment.

“Please, for me,” Silver mumbled, and something strange bled into his voice.  
“Okay,” Stiles said, and Silver’s face broke out into a wide grin that made something warm explode in Stiles’ stomach. “Tomorrow then?” Stiles added, and Silver nodded. He had work all day, and a dinner and simulation flight with Derek, but maybe the added bonus of seeing and talking about a relationship with Silver would be a freaking great incentive to make the day go by faster. Whatever stupid thing a dual-ship team did to their ship, or however dealing with Derek went, it was sure to be a fucking awesome day. 

“At eight?” Silver said, and yeah, that was perfect. He said as much, and Silver guided him towards the navigator’s seat. 

“Let’s fly then.” 

They couldn’t go that far, since there were Zurek ships hanging around just out of The Crowned Galaxy’s firing range, and Erica’s ship didn’t have any weapons or defense, but they stuck close to the Crowned Galaxy and Silver attempted any trick Stiles told him to try (most of them failures, but that was okay). His thoughts about Scott never really went away, not like they had when he was close and kissing Silver, but they were easier when he and Silver were flying, more carefree. And maybe Silver was right about the waiting thing. Stiles would’ve agreed with anything Silver said, if it meant thinking about Scott was curbed a little, and though he knew his feelings and he knew he liked Silver a lot, that was still kind of scary. 

When they got back into the hangar, Stiles had three messages waiting for him on his wrist-link, all from the same number, though he didn’t have it listed in his contacts. 

‘ _Scott is stable and in great condition! He can have visitors! :D_ ’  
‘ _Also this is Allison! :)_ ’  
‘ _I hope you don’t mind that I have your number. Scott lost his contacts once and gave them to me for safekeeping just in case. “0.o_ ’

Stiles saved the number and the tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his body released all at once. Isaac had probably been the first one contacted, and he didn’t have Stiles’ number.

“Good news?” Silver asked, and when Stiles looked up he had the top half of his flight suit unzipped and an unreadable look on his face. Right, his sister didn’t make it in the same situation. 

“Yeah, Scott’s...Scott’s good.” He sheepishly scratched the back of his neck and hoped it didn’t make any bad feelings bubble up in Silver’s throat. 

Silver raised an eyebrow as if to say I told you so, and Stiles resisted the urge to punch him in the shoulder. 

Fuck, he’d gotten to _kiss_ that fucker.

* * *

Scott was looking a little pale, but happy on his medroom bed. He was hooked up to an IV, but he must have charmed the nurses into getting him food, because he had piles of unopened snacks and candy bars scattered around him, and what looked like a carton of buffalo chicken mac and cheese in his hands. Stiles let himself feel a little jealous because he always puked his guts out after an injury bad enough to get him in the medroom. 

“Dude!” Scott shouted around a mouthful of food, and Stiles quirked a grin. There was no one else in the room, which was strange, so Stiles had the sneaking suspicion that Allison cleared the room when he mentioned he was heading over.

“Hey, man,” Stiles said, and Scott patted the seat of a chair right next to the bed. Stiles headed right over, and when he sat the seat was still warm so he had a feeling Allison had indeed kicked everyone out. He didn’t really know her well enough to expect it, but it was nice knowing that she knew and cared enough about him and his relationship with Scott to do that. 

“So, uh, what the hell did you do?” Stiles asked, no build-up necessary. 

Scott winced and set his mac and cheese bowl down on the bed next to him. “I can’t get you to ask Isaac, can I? Pity the injured guy in the bed?” 

Yeah, Stiles had tried that. “All he did was complain about you and your hero complex or something.” 

“Aw, he cares about me, doesn’t he?” 

Stiles rolled his eyes but didn’t comment on the (poorly) attempted subject change. Like he was going to forget asking about what Scott injured and how. 

He leaned forward and rested his hand on the bed next to a couple of Three Musketeers bars. There were a lot on the bed actually, far more than anything else on there, so he wondered if it was inside joke between Scott and whoever had brought them. “Scott,” he said softly, and Scott sighed and reached forward to wrap his hand awkwardly around the back of Stiles’ hand. 

“I was doing my job, y’know? We were leaving because the Zureks got reinforcements, but then there were these two kids on a roof and their house was on fire—”

“Scott, you didn’t.”

“—I totally did. Shut up. I dove down and grabbed ‘em. Then dropped ‘em down near someone else’s house so they could head to their underground shelter, but as I was coming up the reinforcements got there and we were an easy target being so far from the other ships. We went diving front first when they hit us, so I guess I should be thankful Whiskey Romeo had my back because apparently my bone poked through my skin and I passed out? Gross.”

Scott turned away to grab his mac and cheese again and stuff his face with a forkful immediately. It was one of his avoidance tactics, and Stiles knew that, but he was too grateful that Scott was okay, and would continue to be okay, to point that out. 

He kind of wanted to hit Scott or something because he’d scared the shit out of Stiles (and Isaac and probably the girls in Whiskey Romeo too), but it was so Scott. Of course he’d put himself at risk being a hero, and of course he’d end up okay. Stiles didn’t know why he had ever doubted it. 

“How are you not hurling?” Stiles said softly, gesturing at the mac and cheese bowl.

Scott shrugged and was (thankfully) considerate enough to swallow before his spoke. “I don’t know, man. Growing bones is serious business I guess.” 

Stiles’ eyebrows rose. Growing bones? Yeah, Scott mentioned something about a broken leg, and neither of his legs were raised like they’d usually be in the medroom, but he just assumed they’d just set it with titanium and would give him an ace bandage and an air cast later. Speeding up bone growth, or growing bones, was expensive as hell. 

“They’re having you grow it?”

“Yeah. That medicine stuff tastes gross, man, but I powered through it and now I’ll be good and ready in a week or two instead of longer.”

“You said your bone popped out?” 

“Yeah, right out of my shin and knee apparently. I’d show you the stitches from my surgery but they wrapped me in this weird stuff to keep infections out so you’ll have to live with your imagination.” 

Stiles winced and couldn’t help but look at Scott’s blanket covered lower half in morbid curiosity. It was probably a good thing Scott couldn’t show him because Stiles was inclined to see, even if he’d end up throwing up or grossing out at it.

“But enough about me,” Scott said and he stuck his fork in his mouth to suck the remaining bits of cheese sauce off. “All I’ve been doing is sitting here trying to watch puppy videos on my wrist-link and eating. So what’s been happening while I was out?” 

He could tell Scott about Silver, but it still seemed kind of unbelievable and it wasn’t really time for that. Not when Scott was just barely okay after his injury. 

“I skipped work to fly Mistletoe’s ship.”

The fork popped out of Scott’s mouth. “No way! It wasn’t because of me, right?”

“Nah, it was, uh, Mistletoe needed it done and Silver wanted to do it then,” he lied, his heart fluttering in his chest and a blush rising on his cheeks when he remembered Silver and Erica’s ship in the same context. Shit, it was like he was young and stupid and back at the academy. He was practically a schoolboy with a crush. 

Scott knew all his tells so he likely knew Stiles was lying through his teeth, but he didn’t comment on it. Stiles thinking Scott was dead was kind of a miserable conversation topic. “How was it, man?”

“Like a dream. It’s like you’re not even flying a dual-ship, but sitting on a fluffy cotton candy cloud.”

Scott whistled and opened up a candy bar.

They sat and talked about nothing, just remembering what it was like to be themselves and not half scared to death over mortality, and Scott stuffed himself with many more candy bars (Stiles lost count after seventeen). After a while, Isaac poked his head in and punched Scott in the leg, and it must not have been his injured one because Scott didn’t do anything but laugh and call him a dick. 

Stiles was still sort of uncomfortable around Isaac considering he still barely knew the guy and he’d apparently taken on a lot of Stiles’ friend duties when he and Scott were apart, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It was maybe only a minute or so later that Stiles said he had to go somewhere, and on the way out Scott demanded that he bring him some magazines because he could only handle eating, and watching videos on his wrist-link with varying degrees of quality for so long. 

Stiles could meet his demands though, for sure. Scott just might not be happy when he got some teenager and household magazines.

(Who was he kidding? Scott would gladly read anything he gave to him if he was bored enough, and then Stiles would be the one bitching and moaning when Scott wouldn’t stop imparting his newly learned knowledge to him.)

* * *

Sleep was pretty much impossible that night. It felt like there was still adrenaline coursing through his veins from Scott’s crash, though that was unlikely, and his excitement at talking to Silver the next night was difficult to contain. Every time he turned over he either imagined Scott’s ship coming back worse and worse with Scott more and more injured, or he thought about the way Silver smiled and wanted a relationship with _him_. As much as he wanted to ignore it and think about other things than the possible ways their conversation could go, it was better than thinking about Scott (but, Scott was okay! Why was his brain doing that?).

He was just drifting off (or maybe his eyes hurt bad enough to convince himself he was finally getting to sleep) when a soft shuffling and a muffled curse below him jerked him out of his tired half sleep. Stiles rolled over and poked his head out enough to make out a figure in the dim light. Whoever it was, had broad shoulders and a softly stubbled jaw, and Stiles had a good hunch it was Silver, especially since the other guys that actually slept in the room did not fumble their way to their beds. 

“Silver,” he whispered, and the figure startled, almost knocking over someone’s mouth rinsing cup out of their cubby space. Bingo.

“Scooter?” 

Silver helplessly looked around the bunks nearby and Stiles bit down a smile. 

“Up here,” he said, slightly louder, and waved when Silver turned to meet his voice. 

A second later, Silver found the small ladder built into the wall and started climbing it. It was nearest Stiles’ feet so he flipped around to meet him, which turned out to be a good idea when Silver half slipped and fell onto Stiles’ face. 

With his lips. _Oh._ Not a fall then, but purposeful. Stiles’ hand came up to tangle in the short hairs at the back of Silver’s neck and Silver gasped into his mouth, which was nice. Really nice. His hair was soft and wet against his hand and he smelled faintly of apples. 

Holy God, a freshly showered Silver was kissing him.

Silver pulled back and before Stiles could reel him back in, he placed a gentle hand on Stiles’ biceps and whispered, “I think I can. If you want to.”

“You think you can?” Stiles said absentmindedly, his mind not making the connections, but how could it when it practically short circuited with every brush of Silver’s lips against his own? And that was just talking. Fuck if Stiles knew what it’d do when their lips got more purposeful in their ministrations. 

The hand on Stiles’ arm went a little tighter, and Silver took a deep breath like he was steeling himself for something. “I haven’t thought about her all day—just you—so I think I can now if it’s you.” 

Her? What? What the hell was Silver talking about?

Stiles lurched forward a bit, just enough to kiss Silver’s chin since he missed his lips, but Silver pulled back a little. 

“Do you want to?” Silver asked firmly, and God, the grip on Stiles’ biceps had grown tight. 

“Do what, Silver?” Stiles said impatiently, not quite a question, and he leaned back against the far wall of his bunk, dislodging Silver’s grip. 

Silver’s hand remained awkwardly half in the air, and his face fell forward a little. In the dim light Stiles couldn’t make out his face, but he was pretty sure Silver was biting his lip. 

“Be distracted,” he whispered, and though Stiles was kind of expecting it, it cut sharply through the air and practically punched him in the gut with the physicality of it. 

Stiles swallowed harshly, and fell back against his mattress with a dull thump. _Shit_. He patted the (albeit small) space between him and the open edge of his bunk, and Silver rushed forward, bumping his head on the ceiling on the way in. 

“I’d love to,” Stiles said in the twelve centimeters or so between him and Silver, and before the words even fully left his mouth Silver was pushing forward and pressing his body against the back of his bunk, the two of them joined at the lips. 

They only breathed against the hard press of their joined mouths in the beginning, a hotter mimicry of their first kiss, but Stiles didn’t mind. Silver’s shoulders were warm and firm beneath Stiles’ palms and Stiles wanted to crawl in, dig his blunt nails into Silver’s shirt until it tore enough for Stiles to sink into his body and carve his name over and over again into his flesh. 

Someone snored in one of the beds beneath them, and Silver jerked back, but Stiles slid his palms up and around to cup his cheeks and bring him back in. The far bunk guy was a vigorous masturbator and it wouldn’t have been the first time someone got laid in there, so Stiles really wasn’t that inclined to cut it short or move.

“Too used to your single, Mr. Important?” he asked, teasing, between light, smacking kisses. The stubble was starting to get to his lips, but Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care.

Silver pushed closer to him and threw a heavy thigh over Stiles’ hip. “I want to argue with you about that comment, but yeah, I’d rather not have some random guy’s sleep farts as the soundtrack to us fucking.” 

Stiles laughed into Silver’s mouth, who swallowed it up without complaint, and Stiles moved his hand down along the thick planes of Silver’s shoulders and stomach to stroke along the thigh he’d thrown over Stiles. Silver’s muscles twitched beneath his touch, and holy fuck Stiles had probably never touched someone that fit in such a sexual way. 

“Where did the sweet and shy Silver go?” Stiles asked, and Silver officially broke their kiss to trail his mouth down the side of Stiles’ neck and bite lightly at the place it met his shoulder as some sort of sexy punishment, and man, Stiles was all about the sexy punishment. Even if it meant he’d have completely obvious stubble burn all over his neck. 

“He wants to bone,” Silver said a couple octaves lower, hot breath skittering against Stiles’ neck, and it felt like all the blood in Stiles body rushed to his groin. Fuck. _That_ was the voice Stiles expected to go with his body, and it hit him harder than he thought it would. 

“But what if I like that Silver?” Stiles said weakly. He was too turned on to give it any kind of actual punch, which was definitely not helped by Silver rubbing his face all over Stiles’ neck in the worst kind of way (the best kind of worst way). In reality, he wasn’t sure he had a Silver he liked better, as long as it was him and they were touching. He could be a meter tall and covered in bugs and he’d still kiss him. (Well maybe not the bugs.)

Silver pulled back to smirk, and Stiles tried not to let it be too obvious that he definitely wanted Silver’s face back where it had been immediately, but he got to see Silver’s flushed face, wet lips, and blown eyes so it wasn't all bad. 

“I hate to break it to you, but I’ve touched someone’s dick before,” Silver said like he was delivering the best joke God had ever said straight from the big guy himself to grace the ears of puny mortals like Stiles. There was only one appropriate response to something said like that, and Stiles was prepared to bring it. 

“Yeah, but have you ever touched a monster like this before?” he said with a grin, punctuated with a couple of obscene thrusts. Or at least he tried to say it, since he rocked right into Silver’s pelvis and went kind of breathless after the first one, but Silver was hot and hard, and Stiles was getting there, so he wasn’t sure anyone else in his position would be better at talking either. 

Silver pushed forward and Stiles slid into the cradle of his hip. His eyes were hooded and firmly looking at Stiles’ lips, and hell if Stiles wasn’t weak to that. He pushed forward and caught Silver’s mouth in a slow and filthy kiss, his tongue sliding between yielding lips and curling to brush the roof of Silver’s mouth. 

He couldn’t stop touching Silver, running his hands up and down the firm muscles on his back and arms. It felt almost inevitable when his fingers slid under Silver’s shirt and stroked skin. Stiles intended to lick the newly exposed skin (especially his cute little nipples pebbling up under Stiles’ palms), but when Stiles pulled away and nosed his way down, Silver’s neck was just too distracting. Silver sighed softly and tightened his grip around Stiles, so Stiles figured he was doing something right.

“Don’t take it off,” Silver panted out on the tail end of a moan that sent sparks straight to Stiles’ dick. 

“Don’t take what off?” 

“My shirt, dumbass. I don’t want to have to crawl around on the floor to try and find it in the dark.” 

That was deserving of a nipple-pinch, but the half pleased yelp Silver let out wasn’t exactly what he was going for. 

“You’re not going to stay?” 

It felt like Silver tried to roll his entire head instead of his eyes, but Stiles at his neck kind of thwarted that. 

“Stiles, this bed is like a meter wide.”

Stiles pinched him again just on principle. “My dick is like a meter wide,” Stiles mocked against his neck, and Silver kissed the top of his head. It would’ve been sweet if it hadn’t also been coupled with Silver sliding his hand down the front of Stiles’ pants. 

Hell fucking _yes_.

It was on from that point on. Stiles pushed Silver’s pants down to mid-thigh and instead of acting like a couple of teenagers necking sloppily and quietly while parents were in the house, they were a couple of genuine adults sloppily and quietly touching each other’s dicks. Okay, the metaphor wasn’t that great or different but Silver’s hand was on his hard-on and stroking like he had all night. (They didn’t. The next regular work shift ended soon and two of Stiles’ roommates would be coming in.)

Silver apparently liked fucking hands instead of letting someone else do the work jerking him off, since he took control almost immediately, but Stiles didn’t mind that much. He held his hand in a firm O and let Silver thrust loosely and lazily into the circle of his palm. And because he wasn’t a wimp like Silver, his shirt was off and every time Silver’s hips shot forward, the head of Silver’s cock brushed Stiles’ abdomen, and fuck if the little whimpers Silver gave off when it happened weren’t ridiculously hot. 

Silver stopped enough to manhandle Stiles over to grab both their dicks in his hand, and Stiles probably would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if his balls hadn’t tightened and he wasn’t exploding all over God’s creation the moment his hand joined Silver’s. Hell, he hadn’t realized he was that close, but before he knew it his stomach tensed and his breath came in short pants and he just lost it. 

When he came back Silver was sort of pathetically hunched over him, his flushed cock sitting heavy and untouched between them. He almost laughed because, Jesus, Silver was allowed to touch himself when Stiles was coming, but the look of pure unadulterated happiness he was shooting Stiles shut him up pretty quickly. Jesus fuck, Silver should warn a guy before he looked at him like that. 

He was a little more uncoordinated and sloppy than he would’ve liked after he came, but Stiles took care of Silver to the best of his ability. And hell, he was more of a romantic sucker than Stiles thought, because when he was close to shooting his load, Silver grabbed his neck and pulled him into a mostly one-sided kiss that Silver could barely participate in because he couldn’t concentrate on anything more than Stiles and coming.

Silver came with a sharp intake of air and the stupidest o-face ever, but it made the creases in his eyebrows look less stressed or angry, and Stiles could barely breathe because his gut twisted so much at the image.

And, Stiles was a lot more tired than he thought, because when his adrenaline died down and his exhaustion took over, all he could manage to do was wipe his hands on his sheets and slap Silver on the back. 

“That’s gross,” Silver said, but Stiles didn’t care. Half of it was his jizz anyway, and post-coital Stiles was a-okay with sort of sleeping in a wet spot. Awake Stiles might have different feelings, but for now he was happy. 

“You smell like someone else, but you’re better,” Stiles mumbled sleepily into the space Silver was quickly vacating to go sleep in his nice _single_.

Silver froze against him, and Stiles turned enough to nudge him with his shoulder. 

“Do I now?”

“Yeah, but he’s an asshole and a terrorist so you’re better.”

“Go to sleep, Scooter,” Silver said softly, and the bed creaked as he pushed off of it and onto the ladder.

* * *

The next morning, he got up, groaned at the mess sticking to his thigh, tripped over the shirt he threw off the night before, and fed himself coffee until he felt like his blood had more coffee running in it than white blood cells. 

Work itself was kind of uneventful; Stiles ended up working with Boyd in a separate hangar from Erica and Silver, which wasn’t unusual per se since it did happen occasionally, but it was definitely some bad luck if Stiles wanted to see Silver at all before they met in his room that night. Stiles likely wouldn’t have been able to look at or work near Silver without remembering that he totally touched the guy’s dick and that they’d likely be in a relationship after that night, so maybe it was for the best; he’d probably manage to drop a ship on his foot like the dumb boy with a crush he was.

The day passed with a giddy excitement, and before he knew it he was eating dinner back-to-back as per usual with Derek. He chatted amicably in the empty space between biting and chewing even though he knew Derek wouldn’t answer because the guy was so uptight about his identity and he couldn’t eat and use the voice manipulator in his helmet at the same time. Stiles couldn’t remember if he’d ever done that with Derek before, but if sort of felt new and unusual, and Derek got a lot of information he probably didn’t care about regarding the dumb things Scott had done with Stiles over the years, and the guy he liked and his endearing o-face that looked a lot like a creature out of science fiction.

Simulation went incredibly well. He couldn’t finish a phrase without Derek already following his directions, which was a time saver for sure, and depending on the twitch of Derek’s shoulders, Stiles knew what he was going to do next and could direct the radar in ways they needed. He couldn’t stop thinking about Silver and what came after he finished with Derek, but he managed to channel that excitement into something productive. 

Danielle looked shocked when the clouds disappeared into tile and their ship turned back into a trashcan, and when she flipped the screen in front of her around, Stiles knew why. 

A nine-point-three. He and Derek scored a nine-point-fucking-three. 

Stiles sucked in breath, his mouth gaping open like a fish’s, and pinched himself firmly on the thigh. This had to be a dream. Fifteen years in the making and it had finally happened; Stiles was a navigator, and an elite one at that. 

“I’ll tell Peter and get you guys on the roster,” Danielle said, and she sounded just as shocked as Stiles felt. 

Jesus tap-dancing Christ, he was going to be a _navigator_. He was going to be sent on missions, be a part of saving the country with Scott, share a double room instead of a nine-person, and be a fucking navigator. All with Derek. 

He sort of side-eyed Derek, who was standing stiff and wooden halfway out of his seat in the simulation ship, and patted him on the back in a way Stiles thought was friendly. He was going to be stuck with the guy for a while anyway—a guy that Stiles knew absolutely nothing about, actually, outside of his workout habits, the smell of his shower gel, and the story about his cuckoo self bombing Beacon Hills. 

“Yo man, I—if we’re going to be a team I kind of want to know who you are.” 

If possible, Derek went even more still, then with a single jerky movement, nodded. “I...okay,” he said, though it sounded like Stiles had his balls in a deathgrip when he said it. Derek clearly didn’t want to at all, but too bad. Stiles didn’t want to be stuck as Derek’s navigator in the first place, and Stiles thought he’d been all right so far, but if they were going to make this work in the long run he wanted to have a face for the guy he only kind of tolerated. 

“Get back in the ship,” Danielle shouted over them, and Derek nearly fell over himself following her directions. “If you guys want to fly for real I need an official score to send Peter.” 

She upped the difficulty a little bit, but Derek and Stiles delivered nonetheless and they had a score to send Peter. _Hell._ He could almost taste the future missions.

The second run through had Stiles running a bit late to meet with Silver, which had him a little nervous because he didn’t want Silver to think he was ditching or having doubts. It wouldn’t exactly make a good impression, that was for sure. He had his wrist-link contact information though so he sent Silver a quick message saying he would be a little late.

“I have something to do first, so if we could meet someplace?” Stiles said, pinning Derek with a sharp look to say that he wasn’t going to forget what Derek had promised him. He had a nervous sort of dread building up in his gut, but he wasn’t going to let Derek continue his secret or whatever. Not when they were going to have to share a room soon anyway.

Derek’s wrist-link beeped, but he didn’t move to look at the message. Probably Peter then. 

“Okay,” Derek said.

“Can you wait in the viewing room for me? I don’t think I’ll be too long.” 

He and Silver were basically just going to tell each other they indeed wanted a relationship, hopefully with a little kissing, so Stiles didn’t think that’d be a harsh wait for anyone. He supposed he could ask Derek to remove the flight suit helmet first, and then go see Silver, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be emotionally compromised or whatever. Again. And have Silver put it off another day. Finally putting a face to a terrorist was kind of a big deal.

Stiles left without really hearing Derek’s answer, but Derek started walking towards the main elevators to get to the viewing room so that was pretty close to an answer all in itself. 

He let the excitement and butterflies build up in his stomach until he was nothing more than a jittery mess, so much so that it crashed spectacularly hard when he knocked on Silver’s door and there was no answer. He checked the door number, but no, it was definitely 202. 

Stiles checked the time on his wrist-link. He was only five minutes late so it wasn’t like Silver wouldn’t have stayed around to see if Stiles was coming, especially since it was Silver’s room. 

A few more minutes passed, and Stiles tried knocking again with no answer. Maybe he was in the shower? Or held up in another way? He hadn’t answered Stiles’ message so it was possible he’d just gotten a little busy beforehand like Stiles had. 

Stiles leaned against the wall across from Silver’s door. He couldn’t have forgotten. Not if he felt the way Stiles was hoping he did (and he wouldn’t let himself think that Silver didn’t). He didn’t think Silver was the type to put off a relationship, sleep with someone, and then decide not to pursue a relationship. 

But what if he was? Dread curled in Stiles’ stomach, a single drop diffusing to the rest of his being, and he didn’t stop it. What if it was Stiles projecting and Silver was just taking pity, and then, advantage. Being a pity fuck had never bothered him before, but Stiles had never had _feelings_ for the other person before either. 

Twenty-minutes passed, and Stiles was slumped down against the wall with his head resting on his knees, refusing to let the dread he was feeling turn into anything else. Still no message on his wrist-link, and Stiles knew because he checked every phantom noise or vibration. 

Thirty-minutes. Stiles stood up on shaking legs and let anger fuel his movements. Fuck Silver. Stiles had thought he was good, a nice person who cared about him, but clearly he was mistaken because Silver was really an avoidant asshole who stood people who actually liked him up. Fuck Silver, fuck feelings, and especially fuck Stiles for putting his heart out like that. 

Tears prickled in his eyes, but he clenched his jaw tight and refused to let them spill over. He could’ve at least sent a message, but Stiles got it. He wasn’t _wanted_ and clearly Silver would rather have gone through the pain of training his asshole to talk than use his mouth. 

But he couldn’t stay any longer, and as much as the little niggling hope in Stiles wanted him to stay, he wasn’t as much of an asshole as Silver and he wasn’t going to leave Derek alone in the viewing room any longer. He actually kept his promises. 

The elevator ride up to the viewing room was a long one, made even longer by a group of coworkers (Stiles assumed) joking and teasing each other on their way to a night on the entertainment strip, but they got off and it was just Stiles in the elevator, standing quietly in the corner he’d been shoved into with the vain hope of some personal space.

Derek sat hunched over on a bench just to the left of the elevator doors. He was too busy twiddling his thumbs in his lap to notice Stiles’ arrival, and Stiles stopped, frozen still and lungs burning for air because _that_ was something he recognized. Stiles shut his eyes tightly, half in the hope he could keep the tears threatening to come out from falling, and the other out of disbelief at what he was seeing. But no, when he opened his eyes the tops of his cheeks were wet and Derek was still acting like _Silver_. 

He didn’t believe it at first, but Derek’s shoulders could definitely be Silver’s, and the way his left leg bounced when he was nervous was all Silver too, but there was no fucking way that was true. Derek was a terrorist, and Silver...Silver stood him up without any kind of warning. 

Just because Derek was exhibiting Silver actions it didn’t make him Silver though, and Stiles was going to walk right up and make him remove his helmet to prove it. Stiles scrubbed at his cheeks with his sleeves and tried to control his breathing with thoughts of Scott to put him in a happy place, because, yeah, he was injured but at least he wasn’t...Scott was a good person. 

His legs felt heavy, like someone had turned his bones into metal and magnetized the floor, but he walked over in what seemed like a few seconds when it should’ve been longer. 

“Hi,” Stiles said, and was proud when his voice didn’t waver. Derek startled, but recovered quickly enough, and Stiles only knew Derek had turned to look at him because the glare across his helmet shifted. “Show me your face, I guess,” Stiles added, and this time he wasn’t nearly so successful at keeping his voice even. 

Derek stood up abruptly, and Stiles took a step back subconsciously to avoid their clothes brushing against each other. “Can we do this over there,” Derek said softly, and he was still using that stupid voice altering setting. It was deep though, nothing like Silver’s voice so maybe even if it was altered it was still...No. Silver was a douche and Stiles could not go acting like he wasn’t.

Stiles nodded, and some of the tension in Derek’s Silver-like shoulders bled out. It was a little busy in the viewing room right then, especially near the entrance where they were, but it wasn’t so bad further into the room and clearly Derek wanted some privacy. 

Derek jerked his shoulder in the dumb follow-me gesture Stiles was pretty much trained to follow at that point, and Stiles bit his lip, ignored the way his stomach churned as he denied that he recognized it. Not until the helmet was off. 

They came into an area towards the middle of the room where only a maintenance worker was reading the newspaper during her time off, and Stiles swallowed. When they came to a stop, Derek didn’t immediately take off his helmet like Stiles wanted, but he was trembling and Stiles could give him a moment to gather his nerves while Stiles tried to calm his heart that was frantically trying to beat out of his throat. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek croaked out, and his thumbs were underneath the helmet and lifting, and Stiles knew what was coming. Dread pooled in his stomach and he had to consciously think about keeping his eyes open because he really didn’t want to see that strong stubbled jaw, the beginnings of little bunny rabbit teeth poking through a grimace, and hazel eyes with thick furry eyebrows above them. 

Silver. It was Silver.

Stiles sucked in a breath, a quiet moment of reprieve before the anger bubbled up under his skin. His fists had clenched without him knowing and he had to take a step back to keep from doing something stupid like punching Silv-Der- _Hale_ , no matter how much he wanted to. 

“You lied to me,” Stiles whispered, and Hale flinched and shrunk a little under Stiles’ gaze, but didn’t say anything. 

“You lied to me _and_ you stood me up. Glad to know you’re an asshole in both your personas, you two-faced shitstain.” 

Hale reacted to that, stepping forward and throwing his arm out in a desperate gesture. “What was I supposed to do? Race you to my fucking room? Like that wouldn’t be obvious.” 

“Well you could’ve done something. Like, I don’t know, _messaged_ me and told me to meet you somewhere different if you really wanted to keep up your little farce. I waited over a half hour for you while you sat here with your thumb up your butt, but I guess I know how you really feel about me now.” 

Hale’s eyes softened, and Stiles refused to associate them with Silver. “Stiles, no I—” he reached up and ran his hand across his eyes “—I really like you. But what was I supposed to do?” 

Stiles let out a harsh breath through his nose. “Stop. How ‘bout not pretending to be someone you’re not, or maybe, let’s start at the beginning and say, how about not _bombing_ Beacon Hills. I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for you.” 

Hale’s eyes looked a little wet and he blinked once, twice, and pulled his hand back to his side where he’d subconsciously reached out for Stiles. “I’m not—I didn’t. I’m still Silver. I was always Silver.” 

“Just stop. I’m not sure I like you anymore,” Stiles said softly, and Hale’s face fell, cracked into pieces like Humpty-Dumpty, and Stiles wasn’t willing to put him back together again. It wasn’t true though. How could it be? Even through everything, that was Silver’s face looking distressed and Stiles wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold him until his eyes had that happy, content sparkle in them. 

He turned before he could give into his impulses, and with a shaking breath said, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” And Stiles squeezed his eyes shut tight to keep from hearing any noise Hale made behind him, as if that would work. It didn’t of course, and Stiles went back to his dorm room and stripped the sheets on his bed before laying down because being cold was better than remembering anything else.

* * *

“Scooter, pass this to Silver,” Boyd said, handing Stiles a mostly used hand rag. Hale’s was used and dirty of course and Stiles still had his extra burning holes in his back pocket, but he refused to hand it over on principle. He was thirsty as fuck and just as irritable.

“Mistletoe, hand this to Silver won’t you?” he said, and tossed it in Erica’s general direction. He was working on the same ship as Hale, because of course that was just his luck, but he hadn’t acknowledged him. At least he wasn’t yelling at him though, right? Stiles could have a perfectly good working relationship with the guy he was pissed about still liking. 

Erica shot him a look, but Stiles ignored it, just like he ignored the way the noises in the tail end of the ship where Hale was working got louder and closer together. He didn’t know how the ship actually got fixed with all their circling, to be honest. 

Stiles beat Hale to their usual lunch table, where Boyd and Erica were already sitting, and was in the process of chewing through a tasteless bite of peanut butter and jelly when Hale approached. He stopped in his place maybe a meter away, shifted from foot to foot, and glanced over to one of the other tables before rushing towards the empty seat between Stiles and Boyd. Hale was careful not to touch Stiles, and Stiles couldn’t help but grow more and more annoyed at his fucking stupid actions. Stiles wasn’t some _bomb_ about to detonate in their tiny workspace, and fuck Hale for thinking he had to tiptoe around Stiles. 

Lunch was an unusually quiet affair, despite Erica and Boyd filling the silence with their usual easy conversation, and they headed back to work surrounded by an uneasy calm.

Some time later, Hale nearly dropped the wrench Stiles handed him when Hale was one hand short of being able to hold up the ship frame and grab one out of his toolbox, and that was fucking _it_. There was twelve centimeters between their hands on that thing and he still couldn’t act like a normal person around Stiles. 

“Stop being a little piss-ant and work normally,” he whispered harshly in the space between them. “I’m able to work professionally, Hale, so why the fuck can’t you?” 

Hale’s mouth opened in an indignant rise, but he shut it sharply with a click and turned back to his work on the ship. That’s what Stiles was talking about. Hale’s passive _not-talking_ thing where he flinched every time Stiles opened his mouth. Sure they were apparently compatible or whatever, but Stiles wasn’t a mind reader—he didn’t know what Hale was choosing not to say. 

Fine then. 

Stiles stood up, fully intending to walk straight out of the hangar because he couldn’t play that game anymore, but felt Boyd’s and Erica’s glare on him when he crested the side of ship. He faltered under their gaze, and Stiles paused halfway in his move. He changed his course to a different ship they didn’t have to touch until the week after—the paycheck and his job were worth more than _Hale_.

Needless to say he wasn’t surprised when Erica and Boyd approached him after work.

“So you know,” Erica said simply, crossing her arms over her chest and Boyd looking ominously dark and tall behind her. 

“Know what?” Stiles said. 

Erica rolled her eyes and looked like she wanted to say something nasty, but Boyd beat her to the punch. “About Silver’s name.” 

Stiles’ mouth dropped open, slack and unwilling to close. Erica and Boyd both knew? And they were okay with it? 

Erica shifted uncomfortably. “Look, you didn’t see how he was a few years ago when I joined up. Stop treating him like this.” 

Stiles thought he was being generous. Hale was a liar and a terrorist and somehow still compatible with Stiles, in more ways than one, and that fucking hurt. Stiles was still wiling to work with Hale, and that was more than he deserved. 

“I can’t be the only one uncomfortable with the idea of friendship or whatever with _him_ after what he did.” 

“You’re the only one who’s acted like this that he’s cared so much about.”

Well give him a fucking medal. That didn’t mean Stiles was obligated to hurt himself even more to spare _Hale’s_ feelings. No way, and he’s sure he conveyed as much when he turned his back on another set of friends and walked out of the hangar.

* * *

“I wonder if you’ll get anything higher?” Scott said around a mouthful of gummy worms over the background noise of some talk show the nurse liked to watch. 

Stiles shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to Scott’s medroom bed to try and get some sort of feeling back into his ass, because clearly he’d been sitting there too long and it was starting to affect his hearing because he had no idea what Scott was talking about. They had been talking about the pros and cons of watching movies on their wrist-links, not anything about getting higher or some shit.

“What?” Stiles asked and he kicked his foot forward to snag a chocolate bar out of Scott’s slowly decreasing pile. 

“Like me and Isaac are nines but we’ve been nines for a really long time, and you and Derek started out as fives but increased to nines, right? So like, do you think you guys will be tens?” 

Oh. That. Stiles flinched a little as Hale’s name, but he didn’t think Scott noticed. He wasn’t so great at keeping secrets from Scott though—they knew each other too well and Stiles started to feel guilty after a while—but he really hoped Scott never asked him about his so called relationship with Silver, or ever found out Hale’s alter identity was. 

“I don’t think so,” Stiles said carefully. 

“D’you think there’s a cap? ‘Cause I don’t know man, I kind of want to try and get to a mind reading level or something with Isaac because with the way me and Isaac get slaughtered at charades, I think Allison and Lydia definitely have some of that going on.”

“I think they beat you because you and Isaac suck at charades.”

Scott made an indignant noise and threw a candy bar wrapper at Stiles, who barely ducked out of the way in time to avoid getting half melted chocolate on him. 

“You only saw us play that one time and we were tired.”

“You slept fourteen hours the night before.”

“Shut up. You weren’t doing much better with—”

Stiles’ wrist-link beeped out the tune for an official ship message and he stared blankly at Scott, expecting him to answer his wrist-link because Stiles had heard Scott’s go off with the same tune many times, and never his own. It didn’t really hit Stiles that it was _his_ until Scott continued to ignore answering his wrist-link and waggled his eyebrows in increasingly fast increments until Stiles got it. 

_’Ship 3427A requested for level three’_ the header of the email sent to him read, and Stiles swallowed, reread, then swallowed again. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. 

Scott reached over to pull his arm within Scott’s view and Stiles offered no resistance, falling easily out of his chair and onto Scott’s bed over piles of candy wrappers.

“You guys haven’t named your ship yet?” he asked, releasing Stiles so he could sit back in his chair. He and Hale hadn’t really spoken much outside of general work speak and it wasn’t like they could discuss ship names when they could barely ask each other to pass the wrench.

“That is our ship name. We just couldn’t bear to have anything but Ship 3427A.”

“Shut up,” Scott said, but he was laughing. “And I think I finally understand how you felt all those years man, because you’re about to go on a mission and I’m stuck here unable to do anything but eat all these delicious foods people keep bringing me.” 

There was only candy on the bed, but Stiles didn’t doubt Scott’s ability to get the nurses to bring him things likes greasy cheeseburgers and other things that weren’t on his recovery diet.

“How is going? Being stuck here I mean.”

Scott frowned, like the question itself was just as awful as the answer, but Stiles knew him better than that. 

“Boring as hell. They won’t even let me stand up because apparently my bone’s still too fragile, so I have to get up to pee whenever they’re too busy to notice.”

Scott hated bedpans, apparently, and their conversation devolved into a series of noises, teasing insults, and whooshing noises as Scott tried to describe his unsuccessful stealth pee when Isaac was visiting the day before. Before long, Stiles had to leave for dinner and other business—like moving his shit out of his nine person dorm and into the one he was supposed to share with Hale as a dual-ship team—and they departed with a hug that went on a little too long for Scott not knowing anything about the whole Hale and Silver problem. Stiles didn’t want to bring it up though, so he squeezed Scott tighter until he complained about his organs.

It was great having a guy like Scott on his side still.

* * *

For some reason he’d gotten it in his head that Hale would of course stay in his big protected single and leave Stiles with the double all to himself, but clearly that turned out not to be the case when Stiles keyed into his new room and saw neatly unpacked items mixed in with Stiles’ haphazardly thrown together shit that he’d pulled out of storage. Thankfully, Hale wasn’t in the room to see Stiles’ silent, but effective freakout (he was maybe in the en suite bathroom, or hopefully far far away), so Stiles shot a frantic message to Scott with a half-lie detailing how afraid he was to sleep in the same room as Derek Hale. 

Stiles could practically hear Scott’s eye-roll and see his half grin in the words of his return message, but he only teased him a little and said _’use my bed, stupid-head. it’s not like I’m using it. :P’_ And that was freaking perfect. Finally-getting-to-piss-after-holding-it-while-shoveling-a-fuckton-of-snow-all-day perfect. Scott was a _hero_ , and Stiles didn’t even care that he’d have to deal with the castle-keeper Isaac to get to the booty he was keeping (aka Stiles was in it to catch all those Z’s).

Scott failed to mention this to Isaac, but he was still bored and healing in a medroom so Stiles could cut him some slack even if it was annoying to have to scroll through his and Scott’s message exchange to prove it to Isaac. Of course, once Stiles finally got warm and comfy in Scott’s bed, Isaac turned out to be the one man equivalent of sleeping in the a room with several other guys because he snored, farted, and breathed heavily, among other things, for the entire night.

It was still better than dealing with embarrassment or the _whatever_ that Stiles was feeling over Hale though.

* * *

Hale showed up for their mission briefing in his full flight suit, navy and gold, just like their ship. Out of the four dual-ship teams there, he was the only one not in the basic spandex typically worn underneath flight suits, and it made something uncomfortable swirl in the pit of Stiles’ stomach. He wondered if the other teams knew Hale was flying again, and if the flight suit was just as much an armor to his identity for Hale as it had been to keep Stiles clueless.

Stiles expected to finally meet New Guy, or Old Guy Balls, or whatever it was that he and Scott had elected to call him lately, since he gave most of the briefings from what Scott said, but someone who introduced himself as Adrian Harris delivered it instead. After a message to Scott and Scott’s quick reply, Stiles learned all he needed to about Adrian Harris, aka, ‘ _that guy is a green bean. if you don’t brownnose you’re screwed. and don’t have friends he doesn’t like that. _’__

Stiles watched on with a fascinated sense of dread. The 3D holographic map in the center of the room cast a faint blue light over everyone’s bored faces as they watched Harris write on a whiteboard at the back of the room. Stiles was the only one in there who’d never been in a briefing room, let alone experienced a briefing, and excitement hummed under his skin and even the fact that he’d have to share it with Hale couldn’t settle that. 

They were essentially escorting a trainship transporting a full load of _something_ (they didn’t tell the dual-ship teams just what it was carrying) to a war ship over three hundred clips away. It was sensitive in the sense that about two hundred clips in they were traveling underneath a Zurek battalion with only a moderate cloud cover keeping them hidden, and if the mission were to go south they were told to protect car six at all costs. The Crowned Galaxy’s dual-ships were armed, but instructed not to attack or otherwise reveal their position. 

Stiles breathed in slowly and watched the other teams file out of the room, now gone dark with the map turned off. Hale was the first one out, which left Stiles a moment to collect himself before heading into the locker room to join the others and change into his suit, also navy and gold just like Hale’s. The walk to the deployment hangar was a long one made longer when he couldn’t keep up a conversation with any of the other dual-ship teams, and of course Hale was standing by their ship when he finally made it into the entrance. 

Being served by the people he’d worked alongside was exhilarating. Not in any kind of ‘ha-ha-I’m-better-than-you’ way, but because Stiles had finally made it. He’d gotten over the funk that left him stuck in a basic mechanic’s position for eight years and made it as a navigator. Hale was...Stiles still didn’t know how he felt about Hale, but Hale was there, and Stiles would deal. He’d heard stories about dual-ship team partners that hated each other’s guts and still flew well, so maybe that would be how Stiles and Hale would be. He couldn’t remember if the stories included elite teams, but he and Hale would just have to start their own story if there weren’t any. He could do it if it meant finally being out in the sky doing what Scott had been doing for years: following his dreams.

* * *

Basic chatter and one-sided jokes filtered in through their dual-ship radio connection, but Ship 3427A was dead silent. Every once in a while Stiles’ hand would hover over his broadcast button to the left of his radar, and sometimes Hale’s shoulders would tense and shift like he was trying to shake the ache out of a sore muscle, but Stiles knew what that motion really meant. The quiet was getting to them, but Stiles wouldn’t be the first to speak. He wanted to yell and scream at Hale, but Hale hadn’t done anything but exist lately and Stiles could only get so upset over that.

“Prime cherry pie, man,” someone on another ship said, and Stiles bit his lip and let his eyes go cross-eyed until the radar screen in front of him was nothing more than a green blur. There hadn’t been anything but trees, the train ship, and the other dual-ships for over fifty clips.

A loud laugh flew over their radio lines and someone else said, “You fucking pervert, Ace.” 

“What about you, new guy? Navi on...Ship 34—shit why haven’t you guys named that thing?”

Stiles’ attention snapped up and his eyes went back into focus. “What?” he said, and when he realized he hadn’t turned on his broadcast connection yet, slammed on the button and repeated his question again.

The other dual-ship members, and maybe a few other people with their radio frequency code on the train, talked over each other trying to welcome him, and Stiles curled his toes in his regulation boots.

Then finally, the noise died down and a male voice said, “Haven’t you been listening to our conversation? Sexual experiences, man! Share up.”

“You don’t really know someone until you know how they bone,” another person said, and there were some noises of confirmation on the line. 

Stiles stared hard at his radar. He couldn’t say he was surprised that it was a main topic of conversation for a bunch of people stuck flying with a trainship for a day or two.

“Uh, you want first or last sexual experience?” Stiles said eventually, and ignored the way Hale tensed up in his peripherals. 

“French Fry, no one wants to hear about the time you jizzed yourself when you saw titty for the first time. Last. Or sexiest, whichever one.”

His eyes turned back towards the little he could see of Hale in the front seat. Stiles could tell he was waiting, and Stiles… It wasn’t that Hale was bad. No, sex with Silver had been phenomenal and left Stiles happy and thrilled because he liked Silver. But once the truth bomb dropped and the rose colored tint dissolved, Stiles was left with a dull emptiness that made him want to cry or punch things, and he didn’t know which urge was stronger. 

“The last guy I slept with had an o-face that looked like the fucking Bogeyman,” Stiles said, and he closed his eyes because he couldn’t look at Hale’s reaction. It turned out he didn’t need to see him though, because the ship jerked and that was answer enough. 

“Don’t they always,” was the answering reply over the radio, and there was some aimless chatter about ugly orgasm faces, with one person adamantly arguing that all o-faces were ugly as shit and making fun of them didn’t do jack-shit.

“Jesus, Greenberg’s not going to be able to come when he finally gets pussy. He’s going to be too busy trying to make it pretty or whatever dumb shit because you’re giving him a complex.”

Greenberg, apparently, answered, “Shut up! I’m not a virgin.” 

“You’re like ten, of course you’re a virgin.”

It was obvious by the laughter that followed that it was a regular exchange, and Greenberg cut himself out of the conversation until the laughter died out.

“What about you, pilot of Ship three-four-who-the-fuck-cares?”

Stiles held his breath, hopefully none too obvious to those who got his audio and probably had to deal with his everyday breathing sounds, and one of the others called him “Hale” before Hale answered, which prompted a discussion on if it was _that_ Hale. But before they could really start in on it, Hale started talking. 

“The last guy I had sex with had so little stamina he came five minutes after I touched him.”

There were a couple of sympathetic noises and a comment about the guy not practicing his multiplication tables enough, and Stiles slammed the broadcast button off so hard he nearly had an indent from it on his palm. The same way Hale knew Stiles was talking about him, Stiles knew he was the subject of Hale’s little sexual experience tale. 

The anger already pooled in his belly bubbled up, just waiting for the fuse, and his hand twitched when his eyes landed on the flight control override switch. He could press it, yank the yoke, and let the ship go into freefall for a while until he thought Hale had shit himself before relinquishing the controls, but his palms got sweaty and his heart sped up at the thought. He felt so strongly about it he thought he might actually be able to do it, even if he wouldn’t be doing anything but falling.

Instead he made sure the broadcast button was off before talking through his helmet to helmet controls. “You ass,” he said darkly, and Hale’s shoulders did a weird complicated set of motions before they relaxed and Hale’s voice came in. 

“Bogeyman? I’m pretty sure I didn’t start this shit.” 

“And what? I did? I’m pretty sure you started this the moment you and Kate Argent decided Beacon Hills wasn’t a pleasurable sight to have on the horizon.” 

The ship hummed as it sped up, and Stiles glanced at the radar. 

“My _family_ died in that bombing,” Hale said, and Stiles focused on the anger coloring his words instead of the edge of pain. 

“Oh! A terrorist with regrets.”

Trees whirled past them at an increasingly fast rate and Stiles could just make out the first car of the trainship behind the dust cloud it was throwing up with its front engines.

“I’m not a terrorist!”

By law maybe, but everyone fucking _knew_ he was. He was Kate Argent’s navigator and that right there was enough incriminating evidence. 

“So what? You’re not a terrorist, you’re _Silver_ , then?” 

“Yes!”

Even shouting, Stiles could barely hear him through his helmet radio over the roar of the engines. They were working so hard.

“No, you’re a fucking liar. You lied to me and expected everything to be okay when I found out about it.” 

“Stiles, I was lying to everyone. You weren’t special. Sorry I wanted to keep myself happy and safe. You’re the one who raised me up on a fucking pedestal and threw a temper tantrum when it turned out I wasn’t perfect like you thought and you—you _ditched_ me.”

Stiles clenched his fists over his knees, dragging his knuckles across the smooth weave of his flight suit.

“Because you created an entire new persona for yourself! You said you were Silver and you were really Derek fucking Hale.” 

“I’m still Silver!” he shouted, and Stiles absolutely did not wince at the crackle of radio static Silver’s yelling had sent through his helm. Hale panted into his microphone, and therefore Stiles’ ear, and then swallowed heavily. “But I’m also Derek Hale,” he added softly. “Silver didn’t exist in a vacuum and I’m not some angel tainted by my _self_.”

Stiles grit his teeth. It wasn’t the same. His life wasn’t some movie where he fell in love with the disguised version of the bad guy and realized, oh hey, it’s still the same person and it’ll totally be okay. It may have been the same person but the context was important, and Stiles couldn’t be with anyone who had killed all those people no matter how much he had liked the guy before he found out.

“For what it’s worth,” Hale continued, still in that soft tone of voice that Stiles struggled to hear over the engines. “I still lik—”

“Ship 3427A. Ship 3427A do you copy?”

The radio crackled in with a burst of sharp static and Stiles jumped in his seat and clutched his chest. 

“Yes, we copy,” Hale said, his voice high pitched and his shoulders drawn in so tightly Stiles couldn’t see them sticking out from his seat.

“You’ve disappeared from our radar. Is everything alright?” 

Stiles blinked, regrouped his mind, and scrabbled at the buttons lining the edges his radar screen until the display searched for friendlies. Nothing. There were no blinking lights; no dual-ships, no minis, no train. 

That was fucking impossible. It had been three minutes tops since they’d last spoken, and Stiles was still right near the train. 

He turned to look out the side of the ship and the scenery blew past before his eyes could focus on them, but sure enough there was no train. 

Stiles reached for the broadcast button immediately. “Yeah, we’re alright here. We seemed to have lost the group. Relay your coordinates and we will rejoin.”

“Shit,” Hale muttered, and Stiles flew forward into his equipment as far as his seatbelt would let him when the engines decreased their thrust. 

He switched off the button again and said, “Jesus Ta—What the _hell_ were you thinking, Hale?” 

They slowed down enough that Stiles’ eyes could start tracking shapes outside, but they were still going at a ridiculously fast pace. 

“Not right now, Stiles.” 

Stiles opened his mouth because _yes, right now_ they were nowhere near their ensemble for God’s sake, but the radio tuned in again, beating him. “Alpha-4-L-34-gamma-12-north-six.” The coordinates. 

The ship jerked and Stiles tapped his fingers on his equipment to keep from shouting his displeasure. They weren’t going to be able to slow enough for a tight radius turn for another fifteen clips at the speed they had picked up—the trees around them were just too dense. Hale must’ve realized this because his next words were a question about an immediate turnaround, and before Stiles could give his affirmative Hale yanked the yoke and they were hurdling upwards for the first part of an Immelman turn.

Right into the cloud cover. 

It went in almost slow motion, like an action scene in some magical girl’s movie. They broke through the curtain of white and ribbons of cloud twirled around them as they spun into their turn, all while completely surrounded by gaudy colored ships in all sizes moving slowly in the direction of The Crowned Galaxy. 

The Zurek battalion. 

Stiles heart leapt into his throat, and he was on his radar in an instant. It wasn’t...the scouting report was wrong. They were only a little over a hundred clips out and this was way bigger than a battalion.

“We can’t bring this back to the train,” Stiles said, and he closed his eyes tightly for a moment, too long for a blink. They had to protect the cargo in car six. 

“They probably have the coordinates you asked for,” Hale said. The engines thrummed to life again. He didn’t expect to weave through the ships at the speed they were going unnoticed and unharmed, did he? “I don’t think they’ve caught onto us yet.” 

There was no way the Zurek ships _hadn’t_ caught onto them; they didn’t poke through the cloud cover like a little kid sneaking frosting from a cake—they slammed in there with a blinking neon egg beater that disrupted an entire portion. And when Stiles looked up at the closest ship, he knew he was right. Their warning lights were on. They were about to alert the entire fleet and their ready shots were being loaded as they spoke. 

Stiles couldn’t let that happen. In almost a split second decision, he took a deep breath and loaded one of the missiles he had under his command into the main launcher. Another breath and the missile was shooting, hitting the Zurek ship before the siren could sound. Problem was, the resulting explosion was far louder than Stiles was expecting. 

The blast sent them backwards, almost hitting a mid-sized warship, and sent the ships nearby crashing into each other in one big wave. The Zureks knew they were there, but in the confusion they didn’t know where. 

“What the fu—” Hale shouted, but he barely got the words out before he was gulping a breath and dodging in and out from between the Zurek ships to avoid being hit or crushed between them. It was erratic and Stiles couldn’t pick up on what Hale was doing. 

With a startling sense of dread, Stiles realized what was going on. They were out of sync. They weren’t flying like they were used to each other, or hell even compatible at all; they were flying like they were two completely different people with such vastly different flying styles that pairing would only result in chaos. 

Stiles tried to read his radar screen, but the lights and sounds of the fight around them were disorienting, and his eyes couldn’t get a good enough read before they were careening in another direction. It didn’t stop him from shouting directions to the best of his ability, but Hale followed them so poorly he had to know what was wrong. They shouldn’t have even been in the air together with the way they were acting. 

“Two o’clock, twelve clips is the—Whoa, where are you going?” Stiles grabbed onto his yoke with one hand and the edge of his equipment with the other. Hale dove through the clouds and Stiles let out a shuddering breath. He wasn’t supposed to _follow_ those directions.

“What you said.”

“I was telling you the direction of the train!”

Hale swore and tried to adjust his course, but it was too late. They’d led the Zureks right to the trainship, and car six, whatever it was, was lost.

* * *

Harris had nothing but strong words for them when they got back. The other teams got in, reported, and left Stiles and Hale alone in the hangar for a lecture more than a debriefing. Stiles thought it was kind of undeserved because, yeah, they fucked up and lost the train, but outside of a handful of mini-ship pilots and a good portion of the train crew, almost everyone got back safe. How were they supposed to know the Zurek battalion was more than a battalion and a full one hundred clips closer than where they were supposed to be? It was bullshit with a capital B.S.

Harris trapped them by their ship in the hangar, Stiles with his back against the cool navy metal frame, shifting underneath the curious stares of the crew around them, and Hale hadn’t even gotten out of his seat. He was sinking further and further down into the cockpit and Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to become a part of the ship itself.

“You’re a level nine team. What the hell was that out there? A one at most?” 

Neither of them answered, and Harris sighed. He turned towards Stiles and Stiles unconsciously straightened. Keeping eye contact was difficult, but he steeled his gaze and thought about stink-bombing Harris’ room, and was able to manage it. 

“Is this the Hale thing?” he said at Stiles. “I thought we dealt with that already.” 

Stiles’ eyelid twitched, but he refused to blink. “I already knew it was him. I didn’t suddenly learn who he was between our level nine score and now.” 

No, he just learned who Silver was. 

Harris let out a heavy breath through his nose, and Stiles’ gaze finally dropped to stare at Harris’ clenched fists. As if he knew where Stiles was looking, he extended his fingers and forcibly relaxed them. 

“Well make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 

Fucking _finally_. The lecture was coming to an end. 

“You’re suspended for the next mission,” Harris continued, and Stiles couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d be willing to agree to anything at that point though; his nerves were fried, his heart hurt, and more than anything he wanted a big cold one in his hand and to not think for a while. “We’ll test your compatibility level tomorrow and the week after that. If you can’t get it together before then you’ll both be removed from the ship since your job performance will be non-existent.” 

Stiles could almost taste his dreams falling as much as he could taste the beer he wanted against his lips. A week to try and fix whatever had broken between him and Hale? If they couldn’t hate each other and be a successful dual-ship, Stiles had a feeling he was going to end up back on the surface. Nevermind that he and Hale were mechanics. Those could easily be replaced.

Harris took a step away from them and put his arms behind his back. He gave them a disconcerting once over that Stiles shrugged off. He was already planning his departure in his head with a resigned sense of unhappiness. Good thing he never unpacked his shit in his and Hale’s double. 

Then, under his breath, Harris muttered, “And _you_ don’t have enough family left to pull you onto another ship if you screw this up.” 

Stiles barely caught it himself, but Hale jerked back so hard Stiles thought he was going to fall clear out of the ship. He had a pretty good idea about how deep that cut, but Stiles had decided not to care about him the moment he found out Hale was lying, so he swallowed his heart back down and followed Harris out of the hangar.

* * *

It was two in the afternoon and Stiles couldn’t find a decent bar to get thoroughly wasted at. It turned out everything on the entertainment strip was boring as shit during the day—all family oriented restaurants despite the fact that there were no fucking kids on The Crowned Galaxy since it was an elite ship. He guessed it described all those offhanded janitor-entertainment comments since most of them worked night shifts and the only time they’d get to relax and sleep was during the day. 

There was, however, a grocery-like shop with an alcoholic beverage section several stores down from the bar. Stiles spent an extra month’s wages on that shit, but couldn’t bring himself to care about it. He just carted his stuff into the viewing deck and cracked a beer open. He’d managed to down two before they kicked him out. 

He ended up in a weird hallway near Hangar Six where it looked like there were a few unused conference rooms and a janitorial closet, and his back was propped up against one of the glass windows surrounding a conference room, his drinks strewn in various places within his reach around him. He was being good though; he had a bag to put his empties in so he didn’t make a mess. 

Out of all the people working in Hangar Six, Boyd was the one to find him because of _course_ that was his luck. Boyd didn’t even have work today. Stiles knew that because he didn’t have work today, and they were all supposed to be a team, right? But that was definitely Boyd coming out of Hangar Six, and definitely Erica following him out. 

She ran forward and grabbed Boyd’s shoulders in a teasing manner, like she was planning to jump on his back for a surprise piggy back ride, and Boyd twisted under her grip with a big smile on his face like it was something that happened all the time. It probably did. Laughter echoed down the hallway and the beer in Stiles’ mouth grew bitter. Erica’s hand moved downwards, and Stiles thought she was going for an ass pinch like she did all the time with someone she was poking fun at, but it rested against Boyd’s lower back instead. It was far more intimate than Stiles had ever seen them be. 

Stiles turned his eyes away and squashed down the jealousy that had no place being in him. He wasn’t a voyeur or a masochist, and staring at a faint stain on the floor seemed like a much better use of his time.

Their muffled voices carried down to Stiles, and Stiles took another sip of his beer, now gone a bit too warm for his tastes. Then, a single pair of footsteps (or they were both walking in sync, which was always possible) headed towards Stiles and stopped just out of his peripherals. 

“I didn’t think you saw me,” Stiles said, and he thought he mostly managed to reel in his slur. 

There wasn’t an answer, just a masculine grunt, so it was definitely Boyd. Stiles understood what he was trying to say anyway. Like they could actually _miss_ Stiles off his ass in the hallway. 

“What the hell are you thinking, Stiles?” Boyd said, and despite all the anger in his voice Stiles heard the note of concern. He tried not to think about that too much though. 

“Oh, the _real_ name comes out,” Stiles mumbled into his drink, and Boyd had ripped it out of his hands and thrown it into his self-appointed trashbag before he could take another too-warm pull. To be fair, Stiles’ grip wasn’t all that great anymore, so maybe it was more of a gentle yank than Boyd angrily ripping it away.

“Stiles, you are drinking in public right next to one of your usual places of work. What if it hadn’t been me that walked out? What if it had been one of our superiors?”

“I’d be fine. I haven’t gotten in trouble yet.” 

Boyd breathed out harshly through his nostrils and crouched down in front of Stiles to look him in the eye. 

“And why the fuck do you think that is? It’s certainly not that you’re lucky, or special, or whatever it is that you’ve drilled into your head.”

Stiles’ stomach churned and his hands twitched uselessly at his sides. He needed another beer or something to hold onto; he wasn’t drunk enough for the conversation and he sure wasn’t sober enough to have a clue about what Boyd was hinting at. 

Boyd closed his eyes and took in a quiet breath. Stiles watched his chest rise with a dizzying focus that he couldn’t really figure out the source of. 

“Actually, he’d probably still do it even though you’ve done nothing but piss on him lately,” Boyd mumbled more for himself than for anyone else, and Stiles still didn’t understand. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Stiles asked Boyd’s torso, and then forced himself to look higher because he was raised with good conversational skills.

Boyd’s eyes snapped open and it was only Stiles’ slowed reflexes that kept him from jerking back. 

“Stiles, Silver’s the only reason you don’t have multiple work violations next to your name. Or I guess Peter’s really the reason, but you’ve met him and you know pulling favors from him even if he is your family is a shitty deal.”

It suddenly felt like too much work to hold his eyes, and hell, his body up, so Stiles slumped so far down he was looking at Boyd’s knees. The position forced his neck into an uncomfortable angle, but at least it felt better than the hollowness in his stomach. 

“Telling me this isn’t going to make me like Derek so you should probably just stop.”

Boyd made a frustrated noise and stood up. “I’m not saying you have to—I’m not Erica thinking the only way you’re going to redeem yourself is through boning my friend, but at least smarten up and take care of yourself. Silver’s my friend, but I thought...you’re my friend too, Scooter, and one day Silver’s going smarten up or run out of things to turn in for a favor, and then where will you be?” 

The question hung heavy in the air between them, but Stiles’ tongue felt too dry and thick in his mouth to even think about answering. In the end, it looked like Boyd thought that was answer enough because he started walking away. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Stiles yelled after him, and the words echoed painfully in his head. 

The footsteps stopped though, and Stiles let himself feel pleased about that. 

“Call me vindictive, but I kind of think you deserve a black mark on your record for once, and I think Silver’s still upset enough to let that happen, so I’m going to walk away and get dinner with Erica like I promised.” 

The footsteps started up again and a furious heat flooded Stiles’ body. He wanted to hit something, hit _Boyd_ , but his legs weren’t up to working yet and his aim would definitely be off (and Boyd was ripped as hell, but as drunk as he was he couldn’t see that as anything but positive). He settled for throwing something, but when he reached for his bag of empties he found it missing, and when he turned towards his stash of beer he realized Boyd had taken that too. 

The fire in him burnt out just as fast as it had come, and it left Stiles feeling like charred shit. The alcohol had left him, but not in the way he wanted. He was still really fucking drunk, but the warmth and the fuzziness that usually came with was long gone and taken by Boyd’s strong arm.

* * *

Despite how sobering his conversation with Boyd was, Stiles didn’t really have the chance to sober up before someone came hobbling down the hallway on crutches. He had managed to lay himself down on the ground in the time between Boyd and Crutches, and he closed his eyes and pushed his cheek harder against the cool floor damp with his own sweat. Now was the time to get that black mark or whatever it was Boyd said, he guessed, because there was no way in hell the guy wasn’t going to report Stiles for being drunk and in the way in a hallway. 

Crutches stopped in front of him, and Stiles opened his eyes enough to stare at the guy’s feet. There was a funny looking boot on his right leg, which wasn’t really surprising because Crutches was on crutches, but Stiles couldn’t help the peel of laughter that bubbled out of his throat when he realized that a person wearing that silly looking boot was going to be the one to bust him. 

“Stiles, I know you’re drunk, but I don’t really think this is that funny.” 

Stiles blinked slowly, and the laughter died down to quiet huffs of air. Crutches knew his name? That was weird. 

He let out one more quiet half breath before realization hit, and then Stiles was so surprised he jerked back and slammed his head against the wall behind him. That was _Scott’s_ voice, and even more, that was Scott’s face looking down over him with some twisted form of concern, sympathy, and disappointment that only Scott or his mom could mix together with any success. 

“I thought you were in the medroom?” Stiles asked first, because that seemed like the most pressing thing on his mind. Not why he was there, or hell, a greeting, but why Scott wasn’t still hurt and in bed. 

Scott shifted his grip on his crutches, and Stiles had half the mind to sit up at least so the angle they had to look at each other wasn’t so pronounced. 

“They released me this afternoon. I, uh, messaged you several times.”

 _Shit._ Both sets of eyes dropped down to Stiles’ wrist-link. It was off, not that Scott could tell, and that was entirely because one of the lights on it wouldn’t stop blinding him and his uncoordinated fingers couldn’t do anything about it but shut the thing off. 

Scott eased into a different position, but Stiles couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere but at Scott’s mismatched shoes.

“I guess this is why Boyd messaged me though,” Scott said, and Stiles didn’t have to be looking at him to know he had lifted his hand off a crutch to gesture wildly at Stiles and the space he was taking up. Stiles didn’t have anything to say about that though, so he bit his lip and let his gaze fall to the floor. 

“Shit, Stiles, you’re a navi now,” Scott continued. “You can’t just—just do _this_.” The gesture again. This time Stiles sort of saw it in his shadow since the lights were almost directly overhead. 

Stiles couldn’t help the snort that escaped his nose at that, and Scott dropped his lecturing almost immediately. 

“You snorted. Why did you snort, Stiles? Are you not a navi anymore?”

Stiles dropped his head back against the wall and looked up at Scott. The concern and confusion was evident in his face, and Stiles had to swallow down the lump quickly forming in his throat before he could open his mouth. 

“I’m suspended. I found out who Hale was, our compatibility dropped so far we were out of sync, and we were given a week at most to get it back together or we’ll be tossed off the ship.” Stiles paused to rub at his eye, and Scott kept his mouth closed. “It-It’d be bad enough if I thought we could get it back to the nine we had before, which I don’t, but I’m not sure if I even _want_ to. I-I could leave this ship and not care and I—”

Scott made a hurt noise, and Stiles’ attention snapped back onto him. 

“Shit, Scott, I didn’t mean-” Stiles looked down at his knees and threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration. His mouth felt heavy and his head was in a tug-of-war match with his heart, so the words coming forward were nothing but a garbled mess. “Of course I’d miss you, man. I’m just so—with you getting hurt and the shit that’s going on with Derek, I just want to…” Stiles trailed off and gestured at the space his beer had been, then realized that Scott would have no freaking clue what that meant. “Get fucked up,” Stiles added softly, and Scott tapped at the ground with his crutches, probably frustrated that Stiles was still on the ground and Scott was stuck standing.

“You can’t though,” Scott said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “Even if you want to, you can’t. You’re an official dual-ship navigator for The Crowned Galaxy and you have a responsibility to the ship and the people on it.” 

Stiles’ head went reeling so hard he felt like he gave himself whiplash. “I kind of expected _you_ at least to have my back on this.” 

The corners of Scott’s eyes softened, but he still looked so fucking disappointed in Stiles, and Stiles hated that. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and he wanted to argue so badly, but he hadn’t fought with Scott in years and he couldn’t do it right that moment. The cows had left the barn, and Stiles had already stepped in too much shit. 

“Of course I have your back Stiles, but you’re doing something wrong, dude. You’re supposed to be protecting a lot of people, and not just on The Crowned Galaxy. We’re the biggest thing on this side of the edge for thousands of clips and you want to throw that trust, that responsibility, away because you’d rather hide from your problems.”

“Scott, I’m not like you. I don’t respond to ‘protecting’ or ‘responsibility’ or ‘trust’ like you do. I’m not a _hero_ , just one fucked up kid from a backwater town near the first bomb site and I’ll never recover.” 

“Stiles, I’m from that same town and you can, you just don’t want to, and isn’t that the big problem here? You and your _wants_.”

The argument escalated until they were screaming over each other. Stiles wasn’t sure they were even yelling about the same thing anymore because he knew he at least had pulled up something Scott had done when they were preteens, but the heat built regardless. His face was hot, his quips were biting, and it felt good to push and be pushed like that. The tension never broke, but stacked and stacked until Scott’s eyes were watering, Stiles’ palms were bleeding out of little crescent shaped marks, and they pulled back panting and snarling at one another. 

When they were no longer flinging words, they held each other’s gaze so intensely Stiles could practically hear the electricity sparking the air between them. Scott broke it first, jerking his head down and leaning one of his crutches against the wall so he could get at his wrist-link. 

“What are you doing?” Stiles asked, and it wasn’t nearly as hard as anything he’d been throwing at Scott before. They were supposed to make up now, not do whatever it was that Scott was doing.

“I’m messaging Isaac,” Scott said coolly, matter of factly, and it cut Stiles like a whip. It didn’t sound like he was messaging Isaac so he could mediate a Scott and Stiles reconciliation. 

“Why?” Stiles asked, and he barely kept himself from wincing when his voice cracked on the word. 

“Because I’m so mad I can’t look at you right now, but it would kill me if you didn’t get back to your room in one piece.” 

Stiles swallowed and slumped against the wall from the rigid upright position the fight had left him in. “Scott...” he said weakly, but Scott bit him off. 

“Don’t do that. I need to not be around you right now so please just let me call Isaac.”

Stiles went quiet. It wasn’t supposed to go like it did, but before he knew it Scott was hobbling away and Isaac was red faced and fuming as he stomped into the hallway. 

“Can you walk?” he asked in lieu of a greeting, and Stiles replied that he could, not that he had tried it since he first plopped his ass down with his bags of beer. 

He couldn’t.

* * *

Stiles woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling and a pounding headache. The headache was easy enough to solve; the cloud of confusion surrounding it and his desire to cringe and turn away from the bit of pale light shining from his right could only really point to two things, and he definitely wasn’t sick. He slept too heavily for that, even if his mouth did taste like death.

He slid his eyes shut slowly and squeezed so tightly his eyes started to hurt before he opened them again. But no, still the same strange ceiling overhead. So his drunken escapade had led him _somewhere_ , but at least he’d made it to a bed.

Against his better judgment, he rolled towards the light. It, unsurprisingly, made him wince so fast his vision went spinning, the little dots and colors behind his eyelids dancing and sparkling at a furious pace, and his stomach rolled so hard he had to take several deep breaths to get himself back under control. 

He opened his eyes just enough to see Hale reading on the bed across from him with his back to Stiles, and Stiles’ gut churned in totally a different way. He had enough time to see Hale tense up before he was shooting out of his bed and running towards the en suite bathroom. 

Stiles made it as far as his trashcan before he was spewing stomach acid and partially digested beer over the hangers he’d never unpacked from it and the beer cans he must have tossed in there the night before. It wasn’t quiet between heaves; the sound of paper crinkling and tearing filled the empty space, but Stiles refused to look over at Hale. It was none of his business what he did to his books. 

Eventually, his stomach couldn’t empty out anything else and his body had desensitized itself to the awful smell, and Stiles rested his forehead against his arm, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve as he went. 

Right. Isaac had brought him back to his and Hale’s shared room, where, as Stiles had found, Boyd had conveniently dropped off the last bit of beer he had taken from Stiles. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, he was lucky he didn’t die of fucking alcohol poisoning because judging by the state of his vomit, he hadn’t gone to dinner.

In the background, Hale cleared his throat, and Stiles hawked an extra large loogie into the trashcan just to be obnoxious. He stood up and took his trashcan into the bathroom right after anyway, and thanked whatever god would listen that there wasn’t any chunks so he could dump the whole thing directly into the shower for a rinse. Halfway through he was so soaked he decided to jump in too, kicking the empty beer cans and plastic hangers around as he needed. 

Hale was out of the room when he came back in, which was all well and good since Stiles didn’t have anything with him but his trashcan, hangers, and the clothes he’d slept and puked in. He sort of figured out why when he walked by his desk to put his hangers away and saw his wrist-link blinking with a message. Ship 3427A was called to a mission briefing happening that evening, and it just happened to be when he and Hale were supposed to be doing their compatibility check.

* * *

Stiles ran his hand across the buttons on the side of his wrist-link carefully. He’d been doing it all day, and at that point in the evening it felt like reflex, but as much as he wanted to message Scott and see if he was called for the same mission, he didn’t know if he could. Scott was still injured, but Stiles was suspended and even _he’d_ been called forward.

For the number of bad choices he’d made the day before, it kind of felt like the universe was giving him a second chance to fix all the shit he’d caused. Sure, it was weird to be assigned a mission right off the bat again when he was supposed to be suspended until he and Hale were within elite ship flying compatibility limits, but no matter how many times he checked the email, there it was, signed by one Mr. Gerard Argent. Maybe, just maybe, if everything went well he’d impress Argent enough to keep Stiles on the ship, even if it meant staying on as a mechanic, and he and Scott could make up. 

Since he didn’t have work (thank God), and Scott was out as a potential hangout partner, he mostly spent the day playing cards with randoms in the common room until he had to leave for the briefing. When the clock struck, and Stiles’ wrist-link beeped out its ten-minute warning, he set his cards on the table and said good-bye to his current playing partners.

The walk to the briefing room wasn’t too long, the dual-ship team living areas were close to it by design, but Stiles reached for his wrist-link no less than four times on the way there, which was stupid. He was about to see if Scott was called anyway. The briefing was in a handful of minutes, not hours.

The room was jam packed when he got in, which was surprising since he was there six minutes before he technically had to be and there was no way everyone involved in the mission arrived early, which could only mean that a lot of dual-ship teams were involved. Allison and Lydia were chatting towards the front of the room, and he recognized a few others from his last mission, but there was no Scott. Stiles’ muscles relaxed at that, but he hadn’t realized he’d been so worried about it. Scott needed to finish growing his bone, not go on mission he’d invariably say yes to, because Stiles would eat his underwear if Scott had _ever_ turned down a mission. 

The lights were on and the holoscreen hadn’t been activated yet, but there were three people standing in front of it that Stiles knew would be giving the briefing. On the left was Harris, the middle person was a man in his sixties or later, and on the right was a severe woman with short red hair. Gerard Argent had to be the guy in the middle. 

Hale was already there, and Stiles was completely unsurprised that the guy was in his full flight suit again, helmet and all. They weren’t even going to fly out that night so there was no reason for it, but it was Hale. He wasn’t sure if any of the other dual-ship team members were freaking surprised. 

Stiles glanced over at the one or two empty seats on the other side of the room from Hale, then sucked in a deep breath and headed over to the one empty next to Hale. Hale didn’t react beyond a quick stiffening of his fingers where they rested against his thigh, and Stiles only knew because he happened to glance down when he sat. They were closest to Harris, and oddly, there were far fewer empty seats on that side than anywhere else. The glare the woman was putting off looked enough to keep people from sitting in her range, but Gerard was smiling and seemed friendly. He must’ve been a spitter or something.

Two minutes before go time, Scott came hobbling in on his crutches with a disinterested Isaac strolling in after him, and Stiles heart clenched. Scott was smiling, but Stiles could see the tired circles under his eyes. He couldn’t go to bed angry at anyone, and Stiles _knew_ that so why hadn’t he sucked it up and called Scott? He was drunk but that shouldn’t have been an excuse; if anything it should’ve been a reason for calling Scott because Stiles was loose-lipped as hell when he’d had a few too many (or many too many, as was the case last night).

Scott, unsurprisingly, went to one of the empty seats towards the woman and sat down, hesitating slightly when he realized it was almost directly across from Stiles. He half-smiled at Stiles, but his eyes were pinched and Stiles could barely bring himself to return it because he knew it didn’t come from Scott’s heart. 

He didn’t have too long to dwell on it though because after a few more teams ran in, Harris flicked the lights off, the woman turned on the holoscreen, and Gerard stepped forward. 

“I’m sure you’ve all been briefed by Mr. Harris before,” and Gerard gestured lightly at Harris with a grin on his face that inexplicably made Stiles sit up straighter. “But for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, I am Gerard Argent and the lovely woman standing next to me is my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Argent.”

The room was quiet following his introduction, and Stiles so badly wanted to cough or sarcastically say, “Nice to meet ya, Gerard,” or anything to break up the silence, but he couldn’t meet Scott’s eye to ask if he should, and it wasn’t like Hale was going to be any help either. The moment passed and Stiles kept his mouth shut, and Gerard moved on.

“I apologize for the rushed nature of this mission, but the Zurek forces got ahold of some important information recently and we needed to push this ahead of schedule.” Scott squirmed in his seat, and Stiles tried not to think about train car six. “It is a level one mission and I want you to understand that we need all of you if we are going to succeed.”

Gerard’s words were careful, measured, and the moment he finished the sentence the room grew completely silent, like every molecule in the room except for the ones carrying Gerard’s voice had stopped moving. A dual-ship team generally only heard about level ones, even out on the edge, and it was entirely because dual-ship teams didn’t really make it out alive from them. They were suicide missions that only the desperate embarked on, and Stiles didn’t think the Crown Galaxy was anywhere near desperate, but what did he know. 

“As all of you are aware, we are not the only elite ship on this part of the edge. The Zurek forces have their own: the Leviathan. As long as the Leviathan still flies, we will never have enough of an advantage to push back the edge and swing the tide of war in our favor. We need to take it out. It will not be easy, but I have faith in you, in us, and I believe we can start the trend that will take out other elite Zurek ships along the edge and end the war that has plagued our land for sixteen years. But first, ladies and gentlemen, I need to know if you are willing to take your future into your own hands or if you would rather be sitting ducks, waiting for the Leviathan to attack us first.” 

Gerard ended his mini speech by passionately slamming his hand against the frame of the holoscreen projector, and Stiles realized that no, it wasn’t silent before. _This_ was silence. A void in the room that sucked up and negated everything around it; a vacuum of nothing but overpowering obligation and the dual-ship teams’ own fear. And Gerard had orchestrated all of it. 

The quiet was stifling from the beginning, but it had almost hit its apex when Scott raised his hand. Stiles felt it in his heart before he actually saw it, but he didn’t know why he expected otherwise. Always the fucking hero, and the connotations were as bad as the day he’d come back injured and completely reliant on Whiskey Romeo. Leave it to him to volunteer before they’d even heard the mission details.

“We’ll do it,” Scott said evenly, and his face betrayed no emotion other than deep determination. When Stiles glanced over, he saw that Isaac’s was a little more pinched, but ultimately the same. 

Gerard was thrilled, lighting up in a slow smile that made Stiles’ stomach sink. “Wonderful!”

Stiles wanted to stand up and yell that Scott was injured and couldn’t be expected to make the right choices when presented with words like ‘turn the tide of war’, but Scott was twenty-six and mad at him so he could make his own choices. It turned out he didn’t have to because Mrs. Argent was on the same wavelength. 

“The pilot is still on medical leave,” she said into a tablet she’d seemingly pulled out of nowhere, probably containing files on all the dual-ship teams. It didn’t really take much to notice that Scott had come in on crutches, though, so Stiles didn’t count it as a testament to her research speed.

Gerard frowned slightly, and Harris’ face was stuck in the same bored look he’d had since the meeting started. They glanced at Scott curiously, but Scott was having none of it. 

“I’m still in flying condition. I was put on a bone growing regiment and I don’t have that much longer on my absence, plus I don’t really need my leg to fly a ship well anyway.”

“Ah, what a brave young man,” Gerard said, and Mrs. Argent tapped on something on her tablet. “But one team does will not defeat an elite ship. Is anyone else willing to fight for our cause?”

Almost immediately, Lydia and Allison stood up from their seats and said simultaneously, “We will.” Mrs. Argent tensed up, but Gerard looked even more pleased, if that was possible. 

“Excellent,” Gerard said, and the girls sat back down.

Volunteers trickled in slowly, but steadily, after that, especially after Gerard threw in another motivational speech. Scott’s eyes were on Stiles and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to look higher than the floor halfway between them. He could volunteer, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted his first mission with Scott to be a suicide one. But then again, this could be his only chance to be on a mission with Scott, and fuck if that wasn’t a terrifying thought. Scott had been lucky on his last mission, and even luckier when they were kids living so close to the first battle sites, but what if his luck ran out? 

In his peripherals Stiles could see Hale’s hand tensing, then forcibly relaxing on his thigh. He was debating it too. 

Stiles stood up before he could change his mind and made solid eye contact with Scott. “We’re in too,” he said, and Scott’s face broke out into a tentative smile. They were in this together. 

But then Harris shattered that when he shook his head and said, “No you’re not.” 

“Why not?” Gerard seemed just as surprised as some of the others in the room, but Stiles and Hale were stony faced and knowledgeable. Stiles was a little relieved the decision had been taken out of his hands. 

“They’re suspended,” Harris said matter of factly, and held his hand up to cut off whatever Gerard was going to say. “And before you unsuspend them, realize that they’re suspended because they’ve managed to knock themselves out of sync and I will not let a team like that out on a mission. It will ensure failure.”

All eyes turned to Stiles and Hale, more so once they realized Hale was covered from head to toe in a freaking flight suit, and Stiles shrunk down in his seat. Yeah, yeah. They were the idiots who’d managed to go from over a nine to less than one overnight. 

Gerard snarled for a second before smoothing his face back into a neutral visage. No one would continue to volunteer if they knew a team wasn’t up to flyable standards. A suicide mission doomed to fail seemed kind of oxymoronic, but Stiles and Hale were likely not going on it anyway. 

“When is their next compatibility test?” Gerard asked.

“It would’ve been tonight, but as you know we had to reschedule,” Harris said.

“Get it done before the teams go out tomorrow. If they’re above a five, they’re flying.”

That was a little jarring. A team flying out on a mere five for an elite ship? Well at least they’d make the record books. 

“I’ll talk to Danielle,” Harris said, but it looked like it was the last thing he wanted to be doing. 

“See that you do,” Gerard said, and then it was back to regularly scheduled business. 

Eventually after a few well-placed motivational messages, they managed to get all but Stiles and Hale to join the cause. The last couple to join up looked like they’d rather be eating their eyes than do it, but peer pressure was an amazing thing.

“Excellent!” Gerard said, and Mrs. Argent pulled up a mini-version of the Leviathan on the holoscreen. “From what our scouts have determined, the Leviathan has thirty-three weak points in their shields we need to hit in order to advance onto the main body of the ship and they’re located…” 

Scott shot Stiles a look across the room, looking a little dazed. Stiles half smiled at him and waggled his eyebrows. _Yeah, buddy. You just volunteered for a level one mission._

Scott grinned wide, and opened his mouth to say something before Isaac elbowed him in the gut and glared at Stiles as if it were his fault. Scott winced as if to say he was sorry, then pulled up his wrist link to send a message.

‘ _meet me up in the viewing room after this_ ’ Scott sent, and Stiles replied back, ‘ _k_.’ And maybe, just maybe, they had this.

* * *

Somehow Scott beat Stiles to the viewing room. They were coming from the same place so they theoretically should have arrived around the same time, but then again Scott was far more familiar with the ship and Stiles had been to the briefing room a grand total of two times.

He was hunched over on one of the far benches with the side of his thumb in his mouth, and staring out into the edge, no doubt looking at the . Stiles bumped into his crutches where they leaned against the spot next to Scott, jolting Scott out of his trance as his reflexes acted to catch them on the way down.

Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets and clenched his fists against his thighs while he watched Scott right the crutches on his opposite side. Then Scott looked up and their eyes met. It was the tensest Stiles had ever felt around Scott in a long, long while, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Definitely not great, but at least it wasn’t like the night before. 

“Hi,” Stiles said, offering a small smile and rocking back on his heels. 

Scott deflated like a fucking balloon, his body relaxing all at once like that was all he was waiting for, a little friendly contact from Stiles. But Stiles wasn’t the one who wanted space, so any joy he felt was tinged with a little bittersweet because he and Scott used to be so much better at the whole friend thing. 

“Hi,” Scott returned with his lips turned up in a half grin, and he patted the seat next to him. Stiles collapsed into it without a moment’s notice, not even pretending that that wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to do since he arrived. 

Scott turned his head towards the window and the edge, and Stiles followed his gaze. The sun was long gone, but the floodlights on the ships illuminated their outlines with a faint angelic glow. The big dark space on the right was likely the Leviathan since Stiles didn’t think even a high ship density would result in seeing no stars in that area. It looked even bigger at night, like it was bleeding out into the sky and taking over all the parts Stiles cared about.

“Do you…” Scott said, and Stiles pulled his eyes away from the sky. Scott was still looking outside fixedly. “Do you think my dad’s still alive out there? On one of the Zurek ships?”

Stiles bit his lip and wiped his palms against his thighs. He wanted to reach over and jostle Scott’s knee, or offer a comforting pat or something, but he didn’t know if he could yet. “Do you want him to be?” he asked instead, and squeezed his hands between his knees.

Scott pulled away from the view outside to glance at Stiles, then to look at his knees when he couldn’t hold Stiles’ gaze. “I don’t know,” Scott said, his voice tight. 

_Fuck it._ Stiles released one of his hands and placed it on Scott’s shoulder, pressing lightly when Scott turned into it.

“He’s my dad, y’know?” Scott choked out, and Stiles tightened his grip a little. “But he fucking _betrayed_ us and sometimes I...Sometimes I feel like he deserves to die. That his ship was shot down and sometimes I dream that I’m one of the ships that took his down.”

Stiles understood that feeling completely. Maybe not the dad part since his dad was always there for him and his mom had died the day the war started, but Stiles burned to take down all the Zurek ships and their sympathizers. Any fucker who turned their back on their country to join the Zurek cause was disgusting trash, especially someone like Scott’s dad who had lived and survived in the devastation after the first bombing. 

“He thinks being united under Zurek rule is the ideal situation, as far as I’m concerned that means he’s dead, whether or not he’s actually breathing.”

Scott exhaled loudly, air coming out like he’s hiding a laugh or trying not to cry. Stiles was hoping for the former. “You always say that when I ask.” 

Stiles shrugged, and Scott’s breath hitched beneath his palm. _Shit_ , he was crying, and Stiles didn’t know how to deal with that with only the simple connection they shared through his hand on Scott’s shoulder. He pulled him in closer and Scott came willingly, folding himself into the space between Stiles’ arms until his face was pressed against Stiles’ collarbone. 

“I think he was on the last ship you took down. He is what he is, and it’s too late to worry.”

Scott pushed in closer, and Stiles rested his chin against the top of Scott’s head. He was sort of hoping the wet he was feeling was all tears and not snot, but he knew how Scott cried and it was never neat like in the movies. 

“And that too,” Scott croaked out, breath hot and uncomfortably wet against Stiles’ skin. He tried to enjoy the moment though. Who knew when he’d get to hug Scott again? Even with all the gross involved?

For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of Scott’s quiet, wet breaths and the scratchy noise from Stiles’ hand against Scott’s shirt where he was rubbing circles onto his back. Then, Scott pulled back and wiped his nose on his shirt and said, “I feel like we’ve switched positions.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stiles asked, but really he knew. This was the first time in a long while that Stiles had been the one to comfort Scott instead of the other way around, but really he’d rather not have to do it in the first place.

“Oh, help, Scott!” Scott mocked in a ridiculously high pitched voice, and Stiles couldn’t help cracking a grin at that even if he was the butt of the joke. It certainly didn’t help that Scott had snot smeared across his cheek. “My boss is too hot and I’m becoming a _navigator_ what do I do? Please share your amazing knowledge with me, Scott.”

Stiles shoved at Scott’s shoulder hard enough to knock him off balance, but not make him fall over. “Shut up,” he said, and Scott erupted into giggles. He looked even funnier laughing with his red rimmed eyes and messy cheeks, and it took Stiles’ breath away because he _needed_ Scott like that. He didn’t know how he was supposed to be twenty-seven or thirty or even eighty-four without Scott making unintentionally funny faces by his side. Best friends for life and all that.

“You weren’t crying because of your dad, were you?” Stiles asked, and Scott’s smile drooped a bit. 

“No, but you know that.”

He did. Scott hadn’t really cried over his dad since the first couple of months after he’d left, and by then Stiles’ dad had already sort of become a surrogate for him anyway. 

“You don’t have to fight you know,” Stiles said softly into the air between them. “You’re injured. You could stay back with me and fight in a mission another day. One that isn’t… _y’know_.” A level one. One that was safer, involved fewer ships, and wasn’t a fucking _suicide_ mission. 

Scott’s hands came up to grasp at Stiles’ shoulders, and he dropped his head to press his forehead against Stiles’. Stiles eyes were prickling so bad he didn’t even care that Scott’s crying snot face was so close; his was about to join the party. 

“You know I have to,” Scott said, and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut tightly. 

Fuck, he did know. Scott would do anything right, and taking out the biggest enemy ship nearby was definitely right, even if he was risking his life to do so. Stiles just wished he could be out there with him. Well, he wished he could be out there with him without the level one thing, but no one ever said saving the country would be easy.

“And you know what, Stiles? I do think you’re a hero, and I know our parents think so too.”

It didn’t count if it was Scott or their parents. That had about as much sway as a parent telling their kid they were beautiful, but fuck if it didn’t warm Stiles’ heart anyway. Hot tears made their way down his cheeks, no matter how hard he kept his eyes shut, and just like that it had turned back around to Scott comforting Stiles.

“Thanks,” Stiles choked out, and Scott pulled him in close for one last hug. 

“I’ll see you after I get back on the ship,” Scott said confidently in his ear, and Stiles managed to get his breathing under control enough to return the sentiment. They’d make it through this, no doubt.

* * *

Stiles sucked it up and went back to his and Hale’s room by choice. He didn’t exactly want to face Hale looking like he’d just cried his eyes out in the bathroom next to the viewing room, so he didn’t enter until he’d managed to get his breathing under control and face cleaned up. It didn’t matter much though because Hale was in the shower when he stepped into the room, and Stiles was determined enough to fall asleep before he got out.

In the morning, Derek woke him up with a couple of cautious shakes and a softly whispered ‘Stiles,’ looking less like he was trying to get him up and more like he was trying to avoid waking up the dragon on top of the treasure he wanted. Stiles blinked blearily up at him, staring at the purple bags under Derek’s eyes and his pallid skin made worse in the fluorescent glow from the overhead lights. 

“Why’re you…” Stiles slurred and then clumsily lifted a hand to rub the sleep out of his eyes. 

Derek took a step back and Stiles noticed he was dressed in the spandex flight suit underclothes. He looked smaller, shrunken into his surroundings, and Stiles had to force his palm harder against his eye to keep himself from reaching out. He couldn’t really figure out why his body was telling him he _shouldn’t_ , though.

“We have to meet Danielle in an hour. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to shower or…” Derek trailed off and gestured sort of helplessly towards their bathroom. 

Stiles jerked upright, his brain firing a little more than before, and Hale flinched back a little. Right. Stiles had gone to bed before he’d gotten any kind of word from Harris, and clearly Hale was a lot nicer than Stiles would’ve been had it been the other way around. 

“Yeah, I—Thanks,” he said, and he untangled himself from his blankets and pulled himself out of bed.

He made it as far as his towel rack before Hale spoke up again. “At least,” he said, and snapped his mouth shut when Stiles turned to look at him, like he hadn’t meant to talk at all. “At least you’re not—” Hale broke off to wave at Stiles’ trashcan “—this morning.” 

Stiles blinked slowly at the trashcan, not comprehending at first, then turned back to Hale. He was clutching a book at his hip with his other hand and staring off towards the trashcan. Full of beer cans. Oh, right. At least he wasn’t _hungover as fuck_ this morning. 

“Um, yeah. I didn’t drink my body weight in alcohol last night.” In reality, he probably had more of a reason to, but Stiles could be responsible when he wanted to be, and he knew he had work at the very least, if not a mission.

The silence that followed Stiles’ sentence was a little too long and painful for him to handle, so he finished gathering his shower things and entered the bathroom, leaving Hale to his book. 

He took a long time in the shower, not wanting to have an awkward thirty or so minutes he had to spend with Hale between getting out and leaving for the simulation room, and sure enough, Hale was sitting on his bed with a book cracked open over his knees so he was positive he’d made the right decision. Hale had changed into a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt while Stiles was in the shower, and he was chewing on a protein bar, pausing periodically to sweep crumbs out of his book. 

Stiles hung his towel up on the rack and glanced at the digital clock on his desk. There was one problem with his whole ‘shower until it was almost time to leave’ thing.

“Do you think I have enough time to get breakfast first?” he asked, and Hale looked up from his book. Stiles didn’t recognize the cover, but it must have been good if Hale was so engrossed by it. 

Hale looked at the clock, sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, and then set his book upside down and open on the bed beside him to lean over and rummage in his bedside table. He came up with another protein bar in his hand, and he tossed it over before Stiles could decline. 

“Thanks,” Stiles mumbled, but Hale had already turned back to his book. He turned the bar over carefully in his hand. Peanut butter. Stiles wasn’t sure if they were all peanut butter flavored, or if it was a flavor Hale didn’t like from a variety pack and he was just fobbing it off on Stiles while he had the chance. His head wanted to say it was the latter, but in his gut was telling him that it was Hale’s favorite, and that made him feel uncomfortable. Stiles ripped open the package and shoved it in his mouth before he could think about it any longer.

There were still about ten minutes before they had to leave, and Stiles didn’t really know what to do to waste it. He didn’t want to unpack; if he and Hale couldn’t get things working again he was going to have to pack it up again anyway. He didn’t have books lying around like Hale did, and Stiles definitely wasn’t going to ask him for one. In the end, he made his bed like a weirdo and uselessly rearranged the things he did have unpacked until it was close enough to go time. 

Stiles wasn’t sure if Hale wanted to walk with him or whatever to the simulation room, but he wasn’t going to ask, so he exaggerated his getting-up-to-go movements until he heard Hale quietly set his book down. That was answer enough really. 

It wasn’t until Stiles was holding the door open for him that he realized Hale was still in the athletic shorts and t-shirt combo, pretty close to what Stiles generally wore to simulation things. “You’re not changing?” he asked, eyebrows high on his forehead. 

Hale shrugged and ducked his head, but Stiles still caught the red coloring his cheeks before his face was out of view. “Danielle doesn’t know who Silver is, so,” he said into his chest. 

“Oh.”

It was…surprising, to say the least. Stiles didn’t really blame him; it could get really fucking hot in that room and the cockpits in the sim-ship were tiny as heck so any clothing made chafing a possible and regular thing. But didn’t that negate all Hale had worked for? Stiles seriously hoped Hale hadn’t done it for him in some sort of half-cooked plot to show Stiles that he was Silver and Derek Hale. Stiles _knew_ that, and even the possibility made him anxious. He couldn’t be the reason for someone’s built identity to fall, even if he didn’t really like them much at the moment. 

They walked the rest of the way to the simulation room in silence. A few people here and there waved at Hale as they walked, and it hit Stiles how long Hale had lived there as Silver, free from his past. The Crowned Galaxy was a little too big for him to know everyone, or even half that, but he knew a _lot_ of the dual-ship teams and the other mechanic teams. 

Danielle was already standing by the operating system when they arrived, looking just as put together as she always did despite it being her time off. She greeted them with a tired smile when they walked over to the equipment, and did a double take when she realized Hale was sans flight suit. 

“Damn,” she said quietly, but loud enough for Stiles to hear. “I should’ve put on my expensive perfume.” 

Stiles and Hale got into their positions automatically, but Danielle didn’t start up the simulation. Stiles shot her a curious glance, and she shrugged. 

“Sorry, boys, but we can’t start until Mr. Harris gets here. Mr. Argent thinks Peter might be ‘compromised by a personal involvement,’—” Hale half-interrupted her with a snort, but Danielle continued on as if it were nothing. “—so he sent someone—in his words—trustworthy.”

Danielle looked a little peeved, but Stiles would be too if the head honcho thought his word wasn’t worth beans if he’d been handling official simulation runs for as long as Danielle had.

Thankfully, Harris arrived a few minutes later and they were able to start.

Stiles sucked in a breath as the ring exercise began. He didn’t want to go on the level one mission, he knew that for sure, but it was less about the mission and more about the level one. He wanted to be out in a dual-ship, he wanted to be a contributing factor, and he wanted to be out there helping with Scott, but he didn’t want to die doing it. It seemed obvious now; joining a war had the potential for death, but it never really crossed his mind that he was included in that potential. 

Still, he tried his best to do everything he’d done the day he and Hale got the nine. He thought about kissing Silver, the happiness he felt at being so close to a relationship with him, and the dumb jerky gestures he’d do when he wanted Stiles to follow him. It wasn’t magic, and it definitely left Stiles with a bittersweet taste in his mouth, but he and Hale weren’t doing awfully, per se. It was nowhere near a nine performance, hell, Stiles wasn’t sure he’d call it a six, but they were doing well enough for the magic five, and that was fucking scary. With the way the ship shook at the end of their simulation, Stiles bet Hale was feeling the same thing.

Then, the final exercise finished and the simulation turned off. Stiles could barely make himself look away from his shitty, pretend controls, but he did, and Danielle was clicking away at her operating system.

“Well it’s not a five…” Danielle said, and the barely concealed disappointment on Harris’ face told them exactly what side of five the score was on.

A four-point-six. Relief hit Stiles like a glass of cold water.

* * *

Stiles didn’t know if he’d count it a blessing or a curse that Wolf Pack wasn’t working in any of the hangars the Leviathan mission crew were launching from. It was bad enough hearing the announcements over the intercom (‘Charlie Kilo leaving Hangar Seven’ nearly made him drop a riveter on his foot), but he wasn’t sure he could get any work done physically seeing them leave. 

Instead he got to work in Hangar Six fixing up broken backups. Most of them were pretty hopeless since the mechanics got almost all of the general broken ship population cleaned up in the build contest a while ago, but Wolf Pack, along with another group, worked anyway.

He was teamed up with Erica mostly, who thankfully hadn’t mentioned anything about Stiles and Hale and whether or not Stiles was treating him right, but he’d walked in with Hale so maybe that had placated her enough. They’d worked up a pretty good system and were making good time on the ship—they’d probably have it finished by lunch—when she set down her welding torch and lifted her goggles to stare at him.

“You’re hauling ass today,” she said appreciatively, and Stiles paused where his hands were buried in the back-end of the ship to shoot her an annoyed look. She wasn’t looking at him though, her eyes were focused in the general area of his toolbox.

“Well, you know what they say. Anxious minds make for heavy work.” 

When he worked he didn’t think about the Leviathan, and that was enough for him.

“I’m pretty sure no one but you has ever said that.” 

“Shut up,” Stiles grumbled and he turned his attention back to his work. “You can’t tell me you aren’t hurrying this up so you can work on your baby while we’re here.” He pulled his hand out of the ship for a moment to wave at her ship covered by a tarp in the corner.

“Actually,” she said, “me and Boyd finished it a few days ago. It still needs a test run to be sure and Danny has to come down and get the computer parts working the way I want, but it’s there.” 

Erica was staring thoughtfully at her ship with a soft smile on her face, and Stiles had to force his eyes away. It was more than just a bit of hard work—that ship was her dream being realized—and Stiles couldn’t help but think about his own, and where he’d gotten with that.

It always brought him right back to Scott, and thinking about Scott now made him turn back to the dual-ship in front of him. 

She seemed to notice that he was keen on letting the conversation drop, because next thing he knew Erica was perched on the ship right next to where he was working, her hands shoved deep into her pockets. 

“I was thinking that you and Silver could maybe test drive it on our next day off,” she said, and Stiles reached down for a wrench a little harder than necessary. 

“I’ve been reliably informed that I need to stop getting into situations where Ha-Silver has to use his ties to Peter to get me out of trouble.” 

If Erica caught his slip-up, she didn’t mention it, but that didn’t really keep Stiles from being upset that he was distracted enough for it to happen.

“Well, it’d be for me so really it wouldn’t be to keep _you_ out of—”

Stiles slammed down his tools, effectively cutting her off, and whipped his torso around to face her. She wasn’t working and she clearly had no plans to start working for a while—her hands were in her fucking pockets, for God’s sake.

“Erica, what are you trying to do?” 

The easygoing demeanor she had going hardened into something more serious, and Stiles rocked on the balls of his feet. She looked like she was gearing up for a lecture, and Stiles had had _enough_ of those.

“I think we should get some lunch,” she said simply, and that was not what was Stiles was expecting at all. 

He was thrown off for a second. Yeah, he was a little hungry but... “It’s not lunch time, and we’re almost done here. We just need like half an hour.” 

“Stiles,” Erica stated, and Jesus tap-dancing Christ, here came the freaking lecture. “Look at your hands.” 

He frowned hard at her, but he looked down anyway. Sure enough, they looked like his hands. Dirty and covered in grease, but his hands nonetheless. 

Stiles pulled his eyes back up at her, questioning, and her eyes were suddenly very tired looking. Erica jerked her hands out of her pockets and took a hard step forward, forceful enough to make Stiles shift away from her. He wasn’t sure what she was going for (his hands? his uniform? his _neck_?) and she was definitely not against using violence to prove her point, but he definitely hadn’t expected her to lift his rag off the floor and shove it in his face. 

“Stiles, this isn’t grease or oil or anything that comes out of a ship. This is blood, and you need to take a break.”

She threw the rag down onto his lap as soon as she finished her sentence, and Stiles’ eyes dropped down to his hands, wide. His right index had blood streaking the grease on his skin all the way to his wrist, and how the fuck had he missed that before? 

“Shit,” he whispered, staring in wonder at his hand. It didn’t feel like his hand anymore. His hands were steady, this one was shaking; his hands were covered in grease, this one was bleeding; his hands were working hard, and this one looked like it was worked to the bone.

“Stiles,” someone said by his ear, and a warm hand grabbed his shoulder. Stiles blinked and focused back in on his surroundings. 

“C’mon,” Erica continued, and she squeezed his shoulder a little harder than Stiles thought was necessary. “Lunch.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles answered, standing up, and he almost went to rub at his eyes before he remembered that his hands were dirty. 

They walked over to the faucet at the far end of the hangar and started cleaning up. The water was a little hotter than he liked and the soap stung some in his cut, but Stiles was pleased to find that it was relatively minor. He must’ve caught his already-too-dry skin on something small and not noticed when his skin yanked.

Stiles must have held his hands under the spray a little longer than Erica wanted, because she appeared by his side a little while later to shut the faucet off and guide him over to the break table, already set with their lunches. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said as he sat down. “I don’t know what’s…” Stiles trailed off and busied himself with peeling away the plastic wrap around his sandwich one-handed. 

Erica pulled her mouth to one side in concern, and reached forward to pat Stiles’ free hand and nudge it towards the sandwich too. She sat back down carefully, and Stiles finally freed his sandwich.

“You’re stressed, it happens. It’s a level one and I get that, and that’s why I think you should take a break from working right now.” 

Stiles turned his eyes towards the table and took a small bite out of his sandwich, so the time he was chewing was just enough to gather his thoughts and not be awkwardly long. “Silver won’t cover for me if I miss work,” he said carefully. Hale probably would though. Offering Stiles a protein bar so he didn’t miss breakfast, and waking him up so he had enough time to shower if he wanted, weren’t really things a person would do if they wanted someone to crash and burn. Boyd might keep Hale from doing it, but that didn’t really change that Hale would want to. 

“Then let us cover for you—me and Boyd,” Erica said, and Stiles looked up at her, curious. They didn’t exactly have any sway like Hale did with Peter. “Don’t give me that look. Me and Boyd will cover your workload, so you’ll just sit nearby and pretend you’re working if one of our supervisors drops by, when really you’re just talking and stuff. Then we’ll just write your name on stuff and voila, you had a successful work day.” 

Warmth flooded into Stiles' stomach, and he had to shove half the sandwich in his mouth to keep from smiling. It wasn’t an ideal set-up, but it was nice of her to offer, especially when he wasn’t one hundred percent sure she and Boyd even liked him anymore. 

Erica watched him painfully swallow his regretfully large sandwich bite with an amused glint in her eye, and Stiles felt the urge to nudge her lightly with his toe under the table, but he resisted. “I, uh, thanks,” he said, and Erica’s smile widened, especially when her eyes turned up to something above his head. 

That was the only warning he got before a large hand slapped him on the shoulder and Stiles was thrown forward into the contents of his sandwich and mayo smeared across his chin. Boyd sat down in the seat next to him with his own sandwich in hand, squeezing Stiles’ shoulder gently before he let go. 

“You’re going at your sandwich hard, man,” Boyd said with a grin, and gestured at his chin with his pinky. “You got a little something.”

Stiles glared at him, but it didn’t have much heat to it and Boyd mostly just laughed into his sandwich. He didn’t have a napkin or anything like that with him, so he stood up to grab a piece of paper towel from the hand washing area. By the time he got back, Hale had sat down between Erica and Boyd. Erica was leaning across the table to say something to Boyd, and Hale looked like he was hating his life and his choices, and torn between shoving them over and being the awkward third wheel to the conversation. 

They broke apart as soon as Stiles got over anyway, and he’d say he was worried they were talking about him, even more so since Hale had dropped his eyes to his sandwich and hadn’t looked up since Stiles sat down again, but Erica pulled him into an easy conversation about nothing and he quickly forgot. 

He had barely finished his sandwich and the chips he’d thrown in with his lunch when Boyd leaned forward and looked him in the eye, suddenly serious. 

“I need a favor,” Boyd said, and Stiles wiped his hands off on his thighs before he answered. He suddenly remembered the configuration Erica and Boyd had been in while he was wiping his face off.

“Okay?” 

Boyd rolled the plastic formerly covering his sandwich into a ball and juggled it between his hands against the table. Stiles watched disinterestedly because that seemed like a better option than his face at the time. 

“They’ve given us some old-ass ships today and the radio system’s broken on the one I’m on. It’s been years since I’ve ever looked at that kind so I was wondering if you could pick up a reference book?”

Stiles blinked slowly, but yeah, he could do that. “From the weird-ass hallway near Hangar One?” Stiles asked, and his eyes flickered to Hale, but Hale was tracing patterns against the lunch table. 

“You got it.” 

That should be easy then. He was pretty sure he remembered how Hale worked the search function

“Okay, what’s the name of the book you need?”

Boyd made eye contact with Erica across the table and they seemed to have a silent conversation communicated entirely through blinks and eyebrow raises. Favor, his _ass_. 

Erica broke away first and slammed her palm on the table. “The big one, right, Boyd?” 

Boyd smirked a little, but agreed. “Yep. I need the big one.” 

“And would this favor also include telling me to take my time, and that maybe I should stop by my room and take a nap on the way there?”

“Man, you’ve got this favor thing in the bag,” Boyd said, patting Stiles on the back, and Stiles couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face. 

“This goes way past the realm of plausible deniability,” Hale mumbled into the table, and Erica reached over and pinched him in the arm. Hale didn’t really flinch or jerk away so he must’ve been expecting it, but then again he was ripped as fuck so maybe he couldn’t feel it through all his muscle mass. 

“Thanks guys,” Stiles said, and Erica gave him a mock salute. These guys had his back for sure.

* * *

Stiles did actually head towards Hangar One to get Boyd a book. Maybe it was out of some sense of obligation, or the desire to keep the joke running far longer than he should, but he wanted to grab the biggest reference book he could find and take it back to them. He probably couldn’t search for them on the console by size or weight, but he’d make do somehow. A bigger title meant it needed more space on the cover, right? 

Stiles booted up the screen and entered his pin with a bored finality. He didn’t exactly know what or how he was supposed to search; he hadn’t exactly been paying much attention to the screen when Hale had done this back during the build-off. A notification popped up on the screen, telling him he needed to swipe his ID before he could access anything on the screen, and God, that was a lot of work just to search for a freaking book, but he yanked his ID out of his back pocket anyway and slid it through the card reader without much complaint. 

The pop-up disappeared and revealed a search bar with a touchscreen keyboard underneath, and that was simple enough. Stiles entered a couple of key words he thought would get him the results he wanted, and read through the list to try and pick out the biggest just based on that, but there were three hundred and sixty-two hits so he mostly just skimmed. He settled on “The Complete History of Radio in Airships” because it had words like ‘complete’ and ‘history’ in it, and since it was in the reference book section of The Crowned Galaxy it probably had some diagrams or something in it too. Stiles didn’t know if it was the biggest, but it definitely had to be huge. 

He had to key in his pin number again before the console dropped the key to the room his book was in, but soon enough he was shoving the thing into the lock and slipping out of his shoe to keep something in the door so he wasn’t locked in there. A half-muted announcement that someone was boarding floated in through the room via it and Hangar One’s shared wall, but Stiles was pretty good at tuning that stuff out; he had to be if he was going to work in a hangar without being distracted every time a ship came in.

“The Complete History of Radio in Airships” was pretty big, but not as big as Stiles was expecting with a title like that. There must not have been a lot of history involved, or the publishers had decided on really small print. Stiles pulled it off the shelf and hooked it under an arm to kick his shoe out of the door without losing his balance. 

Another ship entry announcement echoed through the hallway.

Their regulation uniform boots had laces way farther up than Stiles wanted to do right at that moment, so he did the awkward one-shoe hobble over to the console so he could (once again) punch in his pin and return the key. Another ship flew into Hangar One. 

He threw the book onto the ground with a satisfying bang and followed shortly after to try and see how much unlacing he had to do before he could successfully shove his foot in (two past the ankle). Stiles was in the middle of rethreading them when yet another ship boarded. 

Four? Jesus fuck, that was a lot ships for the past five minutes. The warning alarm wasn’t blaring so there wasn’t anything going south, and the dual-ships and minis hadn’t been out there long enough to need a refuel, especially not four in five minutes since they had an extra fuel cylinder packed onto the ships for this mission. It was weirder that there wasn’t anything but the automated boarding message; no one talking to the pilot through the console, no pilot’s reply. Stiles didn’t have a freaking clue about what was going on, but man was he curious.

That was an okay feeling to indulge, right? It was startlingly strong compared to the numbness that had pervaded his body in Hangar Six, and he truly felt like he needed to know. So Stiles stood up, tucked Boyd’s book securely under his arm, and walked to the closest entrance to Hangar One. The hallway was fairly empty, which was a little odd since Hangar One was _the biggest_ hangar on The Crowned Galaxy, and with the huge battle going on outside he would’ve thought there’d be a lot of traffic going in and out.

The doors to the hangar were shut. It wasn’t really anything to be worried about, but it was rare enough that them being shut the same day as a really big mission, with multiple ships boarding on top of that, was enough for Stiles to remember that old saying about curiosity and the cat. His palms suddenly felt slick against the book cover and his throat felt a little tighter, but he was alright. Nothing like a little nervous energy to make someone question their choices, but he swallowed down the feelings, shifted his grip on the book, and carefully cracked the door open. 

At first his eyes focused on the open external doors, but Hangar One was under the cloud cover so all he saw were clouds and blue sky to accompany the muted bangs and crashes from the battle further out. It had never really hit him how close The Crowned Galaxy was to the Leviathan until now. Even if he wasn’t out there, he still wasn’t a passive participant. If things went south The Crowned Galaxy only had its shields and turrets to protect itself until the back-up ships arrived. The whole thing seemed rather messy, but if Gerard thought it was the best time for attacking the Leviathan, it was the best time.

The space he’d made wasn’t quite large enough to see around a couple of boxes maintenance or the last crew in must have left near the door, and the white light spilling in from outside made it hard to see anything inside the hangar, but he could make out the shape of some dual-ships. They weren’t in any of the usual shapes, but they were too big for minis so it was mostly a little guesswork. Maybe they’d gotten a new shipment? A bit weird that Hale hadn’t told any of them then, if that was the case, unless he was just as much in the dark. 

Stiles pushed the door open a hair more, but it didn’t really help. Mostly it just gave him enough of a view to see that there was also a small shuttle on the other side of the dual-ships. 

He was about to close the door and go back to Hangar Six when the external door slid shut, effectively cutting off the too bright light and making the inside of the hangar actually viewable. Stiles froze. His hands clenched so hard around the book that the cover creaked under his fingers, and the sweat on his palms was long dried up along with the spit in his mouth. There was no way Stiles was seeing what he thought he was seeing, no fucking way. He shut his eyes so tight they started to hurt, then blinked them open, but the view in front of him hadn’t changed.

Harsh colors, gaudy paint job. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, those were _Zurek_ ships. 

Panic seeped into his bones, forcing out the curiosity and twisting the nervousness into something darker. He pushed the door open even more because the Zurek dual-ship teams were nowhere to be seen, and had to stifle a gasp when he saw them in the corner by the shuttle, clearly in uniform and standing in a circle around a handful of tied up and gagged Crowned Galaxy crew members. 

Stiles needed to get out—needed to tell someone because Zurek ships were somehow getting inside, but something, some gut-feeling, kept him in. Of course, that’s when Gerard and a brown haired woman in a Zurek uniform stepped out from behind a bit of clutter and into Stiles’ view. Peter and Harris followed next, with Peter’s head thrown back in a full-on laugh, not that Stiles could hear it from where he was. He would’ve guessed that they were bartering for crewmembers or something, but they seemed largely unconcerned with the ones tied, and that was confusing, to say the least. 

Then, the Zurek woman and Gerard hugged. Fucking _hugged_. Like they knew each other. 

Stiles jerked out of the hangar, not knowing if the door slammed or made any kind of noise when it hit the frame behind him, and ran back to Hangar Six. He didn’t remember the way he took or any of the details, but next thing he knew he was standing in front of the entrance with Boyd’s book still in his hands.

The doors were open, like usual, and no Zurek ships were in this one. What he saw in Hangar One must have been a mistake—nothing. They were striking up a deal. They were spies working under Gerard. It was all planned. Something like that.

Hale saw him first, and Stiles tried his hardest not to examine the look he gave him as he nudged Boyd. It looked like pity or concern, and that was not something he wanted from Hale, especially not when everything was definitely okay. Probably. 

Boyd half jogged over, wiping his hands off on his pants as he moved, and came to a stop in front of Stiles. It could’ve been him tied up on the ground of Hangar One, had they been assigned there. 

“Hey, you didn’t actually have to get me anything, y’know.” Stiles didn’t understand what he was talking about at first, but then Boyd pointed downwards with a half grin, eyes turned down, and Stiles followed his gaze. The red cover of “The Complete History of Radio in Airships” stood bright underneath Stiles’ pale hand, skin pulled taut and white over his knuckles. Oh. Right. Stiles became aware of the weight and his arms shook under the strain. It wasn’t that heavy, and yet it was piling on and getting bigger and denser the more Stiles looked at it. He tried to shift it onto his hip to try and relieve some of the pressure, but it slipped the moment he tried and the book fell hard onto the ground with a dull thud.

 _Shit_. It was Gerard in that hangar. He had influence over the dual-ships, hell almost _all_ the fucking ships in their section of the edge and he was in that fucking hangar with Zureks. Scott was out there fighting for him and...and Stiles had no idea what that meant for him.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, and it sounded like it wasn’t his voice—too far away and muffled like it was behind glass. “It caught my finger weird and fell.” 

Boyd crouched down to pick up the book, and Stiles should make a comment about seeing the top of his head for the first time because Boyd was taller than anyone else Stiles knew, but he couldn’t. His hand was shaking, his skin was too tight, and he still didn’t know what the hell was going on. 

“One of the other mechanics in here was saying his room is above the cloud cover so we could cram ourselves in there if we wanted to see the battle during breaks with the viewing room closed and—Whoa, Stiles. Scooter.” 

Boyd’s face was so close, his eyes tracking back and forth across Stiles’ face and searching for something, but Stiles didn’t know what. Couldn’t think about what. 

Boyd’s nostrils flared with a heavy exhale and he backed up a step, and Stiles felt like he could breathe a little bit better. “Let’s sit down,” he said, almost all the way down already, and Stiles shook his head no. He couldn’t move on the ground, couldn’t really standing up either but at least he had the option.

“No, I..” Stiles shut his mouth with a sharp clack and shook his head again.

“Okay, we’ll stand,” Boyd said softly, agreeing like it was his idea, and Stiles didn’t miss the worry that flashed through his eyes before he chased it out with a neutral caring look. He set the book back down on the ground before he came up, and held out his hands like he was going to grab Stiles’ shoulders, but forced them back down to his sides. 

“Is it something happening now or are you remembering something?” Boyd asked, and what the hell kind of question was that? 

It didn’t make sense and Stiles throat felt tighter, his limbs heavier. Something warm was splashing across his neck, soaking through his collar and making his flight suit stick to his skin. Maybe he should’ve sat down because standing was almost painful, but sitting down was like those tied up crew members, and Stiles could see their faces clearly in his head. Boyd was on the end next to Erica, followed by Scott, Harley, Danielle, Isaac, Allison, Lydia, and Hale. At the very end was Stiles, and Peter was standing over him and laughing loudly while Gerard hugged the brown haired woman in the distance.

“What does that even _mean_?” Stiles gasped out, his voice hoarse. He scrubbed his hands over his face but his nails somehow scratched his cheeks and he had to pull them away. “Is what what? I—There’s Zureks in Hangar One I don’t know what’s...!”

His breathing was labored and loud in his ears, but the twist of rope tightening around his heart loosened enough to ease the fear coursing through his veins a little. Boyd stood stock still and his eyebrows pulled in slowly. 

“Scooter, what do you mean, _Zure_ —” Boyd was talking and Stiles could see his mouth moving, but it wasn’t reaching his ears. He was in a bubble, and everything was so, so wet. An ocean of red was drowning Stiles and Boyd was too far away, up on the surface while Stiles sunk in his bubble. 

Boyd was making the same shape with his lips, over and over again and Stiles couldn’t hear it. He touched his hand to his lips and tried to make the same shapes, but the bubble was slowing him down and his chest hurt too much to make any sense of it. Stiles was drowning. 

But then, “-eathe.” It was loud and booming and Stiles sucked in a breath in surprise. The burning in his chest eased. “C’mon, Scooter. Breathe.” Stiles took in another breath and his exhale sent him closer to the surface. “Yeah, that’s it, Scooter. Stiles. In, out.” 

Boyd did this exaggerated breathing motion, but Stiles was too busy to laugh. His bubble was threatening to sink and he had to work hard to make it rise up towards Boyd, towards life. 

Stiles hit the surface, and his bubble popped with a roar of sound and light, but his breathing was even and Boyd was smiling a little. Erica and Hale were standing off to the side, but Stiles turned his face away from them. He was tired and he’d somehow ended up on the ground. 

“I’m…” Stiles said, and he sent one of his hands through his hair. It didn’t have the same therapeutic value as the short bristles from his buzz cut scratching against his palms, but he hadn’t needed that in years. “What…” he tried again, but wasn’t able to get out any other words. 

“I think you just had a panic attack,” Boyd said, and now that he said it, Stiles remembered this feeling. Being too weak and small for his skin. But it’d been a while—not since he was fifteen and stuck in a shelter with a few of his peers at the academy on the anniversary of his mom’s death and the start of the war, trying his hardest not to let them know what was going on as the sounds of a raid blasted overhead.

“It’s been ten minutes,” Boyd continued, and that sent Stiles’ heart racing. _Shit_.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, and rolled over onto his stomach to look at the door behind him, but it looked the same. “That’s too long they could be here by now.” 

“Shit, Boyd,” Erica hissed behind him, and Boyd said something cutting back about training.

“Stiles,” Hale said firmly, and Stiles whipped right around, focusing in on him immediately. He felt so fucking mindless like this, his body aching for no reason and his heart taking over completely, spilling feelings into everything. Hale couldn’t know Stiles still had those for him, and not the kind that sent Stiles scowling in his direction. 

Hale seemed surprised at first, and Stiles couldn’t look him in the face so he forced his wobbling legs to work and stood up. 

“I—what did you say earlier?” Hale asked, and Stiles kept his gaze on the ground. “About Hangar One?”

The adrenaline picked up again, but Stiles closed his eyes and went with it this time instead of letting it consume him. Sort of. 

“Zureks,” he said quietly. Fucking Christ, his head was killing him. “There were Zureks in the hangar and the crew was tied up. Harris and Peter were there, along with Gerard and he was… _hugging_ some woman in a Zurek uniform.” 

Erica and Boyd looked shocked, but Hale’s face was schooled into something a lot more serious. 

“What does that mean?” Erica asked, and Stiles pinched his temples and thought about buffalo mac and cheese because something needed to keep his mind off what was going on. 

Hale shifted his weight onto his other foot and cleared his throat, discomfort pulling at the corners of his eyes. “Gerard Argent is...is Kate’s father. I met him once when…” Hale shut his mouth without finishing the thought, and Stiles waited a beat before it became clear that Hale had no intention of continuing. 

There could only be one Kate that Hale was talking about, and it made Stiles’ blood run cold. “Are you telling me they let a Zurek sympathizer command a _fleet_?”

Boyd was quick to challenge that thought, though. “I don’t think you can make that assumption. Allison is Kate’s niece and she’s not like that. One—” Boyd quickly glanced at Hale before continuing “— _terrorist_ in a family doesn’t mean the rest of them are.”

“Allison’s not the one Scooter saw hugging a Zurek woman!” Erica whispered harshly, and they all went quiet, the possibilities running through their heads. 

“Let’s say he is one,” Boyd said, breaking the silence. “What does that mean for us?” His tone of voice said he already knew, but was hoping for someone to tell him he was wrong. Stiles’ mind flashed to the crewmembers restrained on the ground, and he swallowed. He didn’t know if he could. 

“I wondered why Gerard focused on offense yesterday,” Hale started. “All but a small handful of the duals and minis were to attack the Leviathan, effectively leaving The Crowned Galaxy to defend itself. If he’s...if he wanted to get Zureks onto the ship that would explain why.”

“Do you think he—” A large boom from outside interrupted Stiles and he leapt about three meters in the air in surprise. Right, there was a fight going on outside. His thought was stupid anyway, impossible. 

Erica glanced at the Hangar Six entrance, and when she turned back around she was biting her lip. “These elite ships have been around since the beginning of the war and they were originally intended to carry passengers. Hangar One, as big as it is, was built out of sight from almost all living areas so they could keep passengers in the dark if there was ever a fight.” She stopped to laugh nervously before continuing. “Plus its y’know, under the cloud cover. Hidden from the big guys up on the bridge.” 

“One, Three, and Eight were cleared for cleaning and maintenance today,” Boyd said, and all four of them swallowed. 

Another blast erupted outside. It was really heating up out there. 

Stiles sucked in a breath and tried his thought again, stealing a look at the closed ship entrance. “Do you think he sent them into a trap—the dual-ships?” 

Erica looked like she’d swallowed a lemon, and Hale looked down, hiding his face from Stiles. Boyd’s face was carefully neutral. 

“I think we better contact Danny up on the bridge, just in case,” Boyd said eventually, and Hale finally lifted his head. 

“I’ll get the line,” Hale said, and he sprinted off towards a comscreen. Stiles’ eyes caught on the other mechanics team, all staring curiously at the four idiots looking pale and whispering in the front of the hangar, and Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat. 

“I think we need to tell the duals and minis,” Stiles said once he turned back around. He wouldn’t let himself think about Scott out there, but the thought was still worming its way through his head. He was still alive, Stiles wouldn’t think of it any other way, but he needed to know. 

“Danny will handle that. He’s communication. But what if we’re wrong? I don’t want to stir up the pot and have it turn out we screwed things up, especially on the day of a level one.” 

“Well, it’s not a truce meeting if the battle outside is still going on and we, the crew, aren’t warned that there will be Zureks on the ship,” Erica said.

“And the cleaning crew was tied up on the ground in Hangar One—you can’t tell me that’s not alarming,” Stiles added. 

Boyd scrubbed a hand over his face. “It just...I can’t believe this.” 

Stiles swallowed. He could understand that. He _did_ understand that. 

“So if worse comes to worst and Danny can’t do it, Ha-Silver’s the only one who can fly so I think he should take Erica in her ship and try and contact the ships through that,” Stiles said. 

Erica started shaking her head before Stiles had even finished his sentence. “I get what you’re trying to do—it’s my ship and all—but if the point is to radio the ships you’re going to want Boyd there, since he can troubleshoot at least. I’m not...I can stay here and fight. I hear I’m pretty amazing with a blowtorch.” She ended her last sentence with a shy grin towards Boyd, and Stiles’ gaze dropped to the ground. He still wasn’t _jealous_ of their intimacy. 

“I would’ve thought _you’d_ want to go,” Boyd said, and Stiles didn’t realize he was talking to him until it went too long for Erica to answer. 

Stiles didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. That he’d want to go with Hale? They were probably more compatible together than Erica or Boyd would be with Hale since Stiles wasn’t sure they’d even been in a dual-ship before, but they weren’t planning to fight. All Hale had to do was fly them out and land them somewhere and then they could radio whoever they wanted—no compatibility necessary. Beyond that, Stiles didn’t really have a reason to want to go with Hale. (He _didn’t._ ) Boyd could be referring to Scott, but Stiles would rather have someone who knew what they were doing with a radio than be able to verify it himself. (And he didn’t want to think about how he’d feel if Scott couldn’t answer.)

He picked his head up to answer something, but his eyes caught Hale coming back over and his mouth dried up. Hale was pale, too pale even for him.

“The lines to the bridge are cut somehow—I tried three different connections and when I tried to message him over my wrist-link I got an error message saying his ident-code was disconnected,” Hale said when he reached them, and Stiles’ stomach dropped out. He didn’t let himself think about what that could mean for someone obviously close to Wolf Pack, or the bridge in general. Without the main communications officer on the bridge the radio relay was probably in absolute chaos out in the field. “I messaged my sister and she replied immediately so it’s not…” Hale reached up to run his fingers through his hair, clearly frustrated, and that was answer enough to the whole situtation. They were in something much deeper than they originally thought. 

“This is happening then? For real?” Boyd’s words were muffled through his hands, the surprise evident on his face, and Stiles could only nod his head. There were too many coincidences for it to be anything but sinister. 

They told Hale Stiles’ plan to tell the ships and he didn’t seem thrilled about it, but he was willing anyway and that was all that mattered. It was simple. Stiles and Erica would stay behind and open the ship entrance to the hangar so Hale and Boyd could get out and radio the ships. They’d tell the other mechanics at some point to rally enough of a fighting force to keep that hangar open and Zurek free, or if they needed to, buy some time for Hale and Boyd to get out. 

Stiles was scared as fuck. This could be the last time he saw any of them, but they didn’t say goodbye. Erica and Boyd didn’t even do a goodbye kiss or butt pinch or whatever it was they found romantic. They couldn’t accept anything other than the fact that they would come out of this alive.

* * *

It didn’t go as planned at all. 

They’d gotten Erica’s ship primed and Boyd had sat himself down in the navigator’s seat to fiddle with the radios to make sure they were working and maybe to try and contact the bridge again, but Hale had decided to shut the interior hangar doors to try and buy themselves some time in case the Zurek soldiers made it to their hangar while they were prepping. 

That was, of course, when the Zurek soldiers reached the door and entered the hangar completely prepared to conquer the nine mechanics in the room. 

One of the other mechanics had managed to jury rig the Hilti gun hooked up to a compressor so that it would shoot nails non-stop as long as she had her finger on the trigger, and man did she have it on the trigger as soon as the first Zurek poked themself and their gaudy uniform through the door. Hale was luckily only three or so meters into the open area outside of the ships they were working on, so he didn’t have far to run before he could duck behind a ship. 

His run went in slow motion for Stiles. The Hilti gun fired in the distance, heavy thunks and blasts of air and metal, and there were laser shots from the Zureks coloring the air with bits of green, blue, red. Hale looked scared, his eyes open and seeing while his arms and legs scrambled for purchase on his surroundings. 

The red laser pulse went slower than the rest based on Stiles’ own perception, and it was headed straight for Hale. Stiles’ heart clenched and he swallowed down the bile threatening to spill up. There was nothing like death to remind someone of just how much they actually cared for someone. Stiles’ eyes slid shut in those few seconds, unable to watch, but when he opened them Hale was fine. Clutching his right arm with his left, mouth in a pained grimace, and gasping for breath under the cover of a ship twenty meters away, but living, and adrenaline crashed into Stiles in one giant wave. 

His muscles unfroze and he dove for the blowtorch at Erica’s feet. He needed to get to Hale, but first he needed to open the exterior doors for Erica’s ship to get out and he needed to drop the magnetism on the floor so that the lower portion of their bodies weren’t exposed underneath the ships when they took cover behind them. 

“That’s mine,” she said, her voice wavering a bit from where she was ducked behind her ship. 

“Mistletoe, get in the ship,” he said in return, not looking at her. “You’re flying.” 

“Scooter, there’s no way I can do that, or have you forgotten?” she hissed, and the pain in her voice was enough for Stiles to turn his head for a quick second to look at her. Her eyes were wild and a little wet, her hair a mess, and yet she still looked so scared. Stiles bet he looked pretty much the same.

“I believe in you,” Stiles said and turned back to look at Hale and the Zureks. He did, sort of, but mostly he just didn’t want to fly that ship. It was really fucking selfish, but just the thought of having that machine under his control made icy fingers grip his heart and he knew he _couldn’t_. They needed to get that ship out now but Hale was too far away and Stiles was too much of a chicken. “You built that thing just for you and you can’t tell me you don’t know how to handle it. I’m going to go to the console and open up the exterior doors for you to fly out.”

Erica didn’t say anything for a second, and Stiles made a run for the next ship. The Hilti gun had stopped firing and that was terrifying. 

She continued to not say anything, and when he glanced back he saw Boyd’s bald head and a head full of blonde curls disappear behind the canopy. He had to tamp down on a smile because it was not the time, but he was proud as hell of her. 

The console was one ship and three meters of open nothingness away from Stiles’ current position, and it seemed so far, especially when he couldn’t make sense of what the Zurek soldiers and The Crowned Galaxy’s mechanics were doing. There were noises and yelling, but the lasers had come to almost a complete stop and their main weapon, the Hilti gun, wasn’t running. He couldn’t even hear the air compressor for that anymore. But he had to do this. For Scott, Hale, Erica, and Boyd, at the very least, he had to do it. 

Stiles took a deep breath and ran as fast as he could muster. A green laser nearly got him on the way over, but he managed to duck behind the operating console with no real difficulties. Stiles didn’t have any time to catch his breath though. He reached up over his head, too afraid to expose anything else to Zurek eyes, and hit the button he thought would open the doors. The metallic grind started up almost immediately and he limited himself to a happy sigh for celebration. 

Erica, with all her intuition, maneuvered her ship with thrusters as soon as the open space in the door big enough for the ship to fit through appeared, and Stiles could deactivate the magnets sooner rather than later. 

“Em-off,” he shouted into the open air, and he reached up again to button smash. The ships fell down with a satisfying clang all at once. It was distracting enough for everyone in the hangar that Erica could leave without a real problem, and with that part done, Stiles could focus on the rest. 

He ran and dodged towards Hale with a numb urgency he let fill his body. Hale seemed surprised to see him, but he was in too much pain to do anything but allow his eyes to widen minutely. There was blood seeping through the sleeve of Hale’s jumpsuit, far past where it was charred near his elbow from the laser. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. No wonder he hadn’t tried to move since he’d run there. 

“The laser didn’t cauterize it?” Stiles asked, reaching for Hale’s uninjured arm’s shoulder to try and get him up. 

Hale groaned in pain, and Stiles swallowed at the noise. Moving was going to be really difficult, even if Hale had the use of his legs. “Apparently not,” Hale gasped out through clenched teeth, and Stiles ground his teeth in sympathy. 

He poked his head out towards the side to try and get a sense of the Zurek situation. Three mechanics were bound up and gagged in the corner (surrenders, maybe?), and one was lying motionless on the ground next to the Hilti gun, covered in laser scorches. He didn’t know where the last one was—probably hiding like him and Hale—but he wasn’t near the Zureks. There was only one or two Zurek soldiers on the ground, and the living were mostly standing around the three tied up mechanics and laughing, but Stiles didn’t know how many there were to start with so he had no idea if that was all of them. 

He couldn’t escape by foot through the hangar entrance, and he didn’t know for sure if the ones who had been spared were surrenders or not. They could be just as dead as the one who wielded the Hilti gun, as far as he knew. There was only one real option (well two, but he didn’t think waiting it out was going to give him the result he wanted). 

Stiles scanned the floor. The ship he and Erica were working on was likely flightworthy, but he couldn’t see it and he wasn’t going to risk going towards a ship he didn’t have sights on. He didn’t know the status of some of the other nearby ships and had no idea if they’d go up in the air. But, there, Hale and Boyd’s ship was only three meters away. He just had to make sure it was in an alright state. 

“Is the ship you were working on in flying condition?” 

Hale seemed disoriented, and Stiles glanced down to make sure it wasn’t from blood loss (it wasn’t), but Hale eventually caught on. “Yes,” he hissed out. “All that was wrecked was the fucking radio, but you just slammed that thing on the ground when you released the magnets.” 

Great. He could deal with that. His reuniting chat with Scott would have to wait, and he’d have no idea about the success of Erica and Boyd, but they could get out on that ship. 

“Me releasing those magnets is the only reason you have a bottom half still, probably. Now c’mon, we’re going to fly that ship.” 

Stiles slid an arm around Hale’s back to help him up, and Hale had to bite his bottom lip so hard he drew blood to keep from making a noise. 

“Stiles, I don’t think I can fly that ship,” Hale panted out, and Stiles froze. 

“What do you mean you don’t think you can fly…” his eyes rested on Hale’s right arm, and _oh_. Fuck. Hale was right handed and he was originally a navigator. He could’ve possibly been fine flying one handed if his injured arm wasn’t his dominant, but since all he had was his left, it was practically impossible.

Stiles swallowed and focused on the task at hand. He wasn’t going to let the panic creep in, he wasn’t. He was going to get out with Hale and then...well he didn’t know but they’d do something. Scott would probably save the day with Whiskey Romeo, Erica and Boyd would show up, and then they’d have a big party. 

“Okay,” he said, and he absolutely didn’t think about the way his voice cracked on the word. He counted off from three, and then he and Hale stood, Hale practically squealing in his attempt to keep quiet while they were standing up. Once they were upright the pain was apparently manageable because Hale was quietly panting during their run over. Stiles helped him into the ship with a practiced ease, though it was odd putting him in the navigator’s spot, and Stiles slid into the pilot’s seat. 

The Zureks started firing again, blasts of blue, green, and red hitting their ship and flying overhead. Stiles tried his best to sink as far down into the ship as he could to avoid them, all the while thanking anyone he could think of that Zurek’s laser pulses weren’t focused enough to cut through the dual-ship material. He slammed his hand down on the button to start up the thrusters, and the ship sputtered to life. 

The ship rose slowly, almost too slowly. His hands froze around the yoke, and no matter how how much he tried he couldn’t get them to stop trembling. Red colored his vision and Stiles blinked to try and clear it, but it didn’t matter because he was slumped too far down into the cockpit to see well anyway; the ship was in his way. With a startling clarity, he realized there was no fucking way he could do this.

The smell of copper filled his nose and he exhaled harshly to try and clear it, but ultimately he had to picture his father passed out on the table, a half-eaten bag of potato chips and an empty whiskey flask strewn beside him, to get his mind off it. His neck felt so warm, so wet, and something was running down his shirt to collect in the small of his back. Stiles felt the urge to check and see if it was there; If his mother’s blood was still there like a permanent scar.

But the ship started moving, and Stiles sucked in a breath. He could do this. He could. 

Only, his hands hadn’t moved since he put them on the yoke and there was no way he _was_. When he looked down, the light indicating that the navigator’s pilot gear was activated was brightly lit. Hale was doing it because Stiles still couldn’t. 

The ship swung to the side, and Stiles tried to listen for words or yelling or something from Hale because there was no way he was silent, but he couldn’t hear anything over his own breaths. Stiles’ toes curled in his shoes, toenails catching on the worn edges of the insole.

In one, out two. 

The screeching grind of metal on metal ripped through the air, and Stiles’s eyes jerked up. The ship entrance was closing, and they were still so far away. 

In three, out four.

Stiles pressed his palms hard against the yoke, not that it mattered since his controls didn’t work with the navigator’s activated. The ship took a hard left towards the doors, no, too hard and they slid into another ship, the wing crunching partially at impact. Stiles’ vision tunneled. 

His dad had been the one to find him back then, running out of the house and shelter before the raid had even finished because his wife and his son weren’t there. Claudia Stilinski’s body hadn’t even gone cold, but Stiles had climbed over the little bit of ship separating their seats to sob on top of her so it wasn’t like there was much place for that heat to go. Stiles was unwilling to leave, but bombs were still dropping in the distance and there was no reason or way for a distraught man and a ten year old boy to drag a dead body into their basement. His dad got him to leave though, somehow, and for the first time in Stiles’ life he not only had to deal with war, but do it without his mom. 

That desperation was in him now, that loss, and he knew he had to change it. Stiles couldn’t hold another dead body in a navigator’s seat while the Zurek forces pulled in close around him. 

In five, out six. 

Stiles looked out to the sky and tried think about his mom, her strength, and he hit the navigation override to bring the ship back under his control. The yoke felt heavy in his hands, even more so when he turned a dial to increase the power to the thrusters and they shot forward, racing to the closing jaws of the exit. 

The metal caught the very tail of their ship, but the thrusters propelled them forward anyway and they broke free of The Crowned Galaxy. 

They burst right into the cloud cover, which was really only perpetually there because of the sheer number of ships in that area. Without helmets depositing fresh air into their systems, the environment around them tasted of ash and burned Stiles’ eyes. The wind and their speed were bad enough, yanking his head back and filling his mouth and nose with black tinted cloud.

He couldn’t hear any noises from Hale, and that was fucking scary at the speed they were going; the wind had to be putting pressure on his wound. Stiles stole a look back, and Hale was sitting tense and pale with his face pulled into a tight grimace. Blood trickled out from between his fingers and caught on the air to send a trail flying behind them. 

_Clang_. 

The noise jolted Stiles out of his thoughts and brought his eyes back to the front. Charred ship debris fell all around them, but Stiles couldn’t see well enough in the cloud cover to dodge it. It didn’t matter much anyway since his control was absolutely shot with the wing bent out of shape as it was and the ship tail mangled beyond belief. 

They were going down, no question about it. 

Fear clawed at Stiles throat, threatening to fight its way up and bubble out of his mouth to give way for bone chilling panic. The descent started out slowly, but time was hard to measure when there was no way to tell distance. Every chunk of cloud looked the same, and debris fell much faster than they did at first. 

Stiles clutched at the yoke, unable to will himself to do much else because the strength he’d asked for was running out. They broke through the cloud layer and everything was ten shades brighter so Stiles had to squint even more. They were going much faster than he thought, the skin on his face pulling taut as the air pushed past his face at high speed. 

The small meter on the upper right portion of Stiles’ controls read twenty clips until they hit the ground. Nineteen. Eighteen. They were going to die like this. They didn’t have Whiskey-Romeo to rely on, no one to pull them up once they crashed so Stiles was only left with a broken leg instead of a broken life. Seventeen. 

“Six clips, five o’clock,” came the shout over the wind, muffled and barely there, and Stiles turned to look at Hale before he even thought about following his directions. He was hunched over in his seat and operating the controls on his radar with his nose. He looked up once, and frowned when he saw Stiles staring at him. 

Stiles yanked his body back around, breathing fast. Sixteen. Hale wasn’t willing to die like this.

Six clips over at the five o’clock angle from their current position was a lake, or a pond or something. A body of water. Stiles had done enough belly flops in his life to know that it would hurt like a bitch on impact, but the ship had specialty gear that made landing in water slightly more pleasant than hitting the ground straight on. 

Stiles looked up to the heavens one last time and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. One more, for his mom. Fifteen.

His eyes snapped open, empowered, and he jerked the yoke over, falling into piloting like he’d dreamed as a little kid. The ship didn’t turn easily, not against the air resistance they were fighting with a fucked up ship, but it went, and all they had to do was fall. 

The numbers flew down in a flurry of passing lights until there was just one, then impact. 

Water flew up around them and Stiles heard his bones grind in his knee, even over Hale’s pained groans. He took a moment to test everything out and count every part of his body with his eyes closed; he wasn’t sure he should still be alive after all that and he definitely didn’t want to see it if something went wrong. 

When he was satisfied that he was whole and unbroken, he opened his eyes. For all the fighting up above, it was oddly serene on the surface. Water sloshed over his ankles in a soft undulating motion, and the wind blew gently across his skin, rustling the hair on his head.

“Stiles,” Hale said, and his voice was so hoarse it sounded like he was going for a whisper, but he wasn’t. “Stiles, we’re sinking,” Hale continued when Stiles didn’t answer or acknowledge that he heard him.

Sure enough, they were. The water in the bottom of ship had reached mid-shin. 

Stiles sat forward, wincing when the motion pulled the muscle up along his back and sent sparks up his neck. Of course he’d gotten fucking whiplash. Once something started going wrong, it kept going wrong until he hit absolute bottom, and Stiles had been on a downward spiral for some time. 

The lake was a long, cylindrical shape from what Stiles could tell, and they had landed almost right in the middle of it. The side closest to them wasn’t a full clip away, maybe seventy meters at most. With their required fitness levels that was easily doable, even with Hale’s arm out of the running. He could just float on his back and kick or something if he needed to.

Alright then. Might as well get a move on while the adrenaline was still pumping through his veins. 

Stiles pulled himself up onto the edge of the ship with shaking arms and rolled over into the water. It was freezing cold and soaked him to the bone with an aching chill, but he puffed his chest out and kicked up to break the surface. He didn’t need warmth, he had this. Stiles wasn’t dead yet. 

There was an echoing splash that Stiles assumed was Hale jumping in, and Stiles pulled forward a few strokes. In. Stroke. Out. Kick. He had this. He’d be to the edge of the lake soon. 

“Stiles!” Hale called out, and Stiles paused. He turned around and started to tread water. Without the forward motion, Stiles’ arms and legs felt so heavy.

Hale was in the water and hanging on to the edge of the ship with his left hand, the ship turning slowly underwater as he supported his weight on it. When he realized he had Stiles’ attention, he spoke again. 

“I can’t swim,” Hale said, his eyes wide and frightened. Stiles felt his heart clench in response. “Well, no, I can,” Hale continued, “but I can’t right now and I think I broke something.”

 _Fuck_. 

It occurred to him, while he was treading water, that he could leave Hale there. His conscience would be fucked, but people would probably rejoice if they knew there was one less terrorist out free—God knew Stiles would’ve in the beginning. His gut twisted hard and Stiles had to wrench his body up to keep himself afloat. It wasn’t the beginning though. That may have been Hale in the water, but it was also Silver, and if Stiles couldn’t make himself leave Hale up in that hangar aboard The Crowned Galaxy, he didn’t know why he thought he could leave him in a lake—he wasn’t willing to break what was left of his own heart like that.

Stiles was next to Hale in an instant, throwing his non-injured arm up around Stiles’ shoulders and kicking up fast to keep them afloat. Hale whimpered a little, but Stiles said nothing, especially not when he saw the tendrils of red expanding in the water from his arm. 

Hale, for what it was worth, tried to help Stiles as much as possible while swimming, but Hale was heavy as hell and more slippery than a fish in oil, so his help really wasn’t doing much. Stiles felt like his head was underwater more than it was above it, and Lord knew how much freaking lake water he’d swallowed. 

“Remind me again why I landed in the middle of the lake and not on a fucking sandbar,” Stiles said. They were only halfway to the shore and already his muscles were screaming. 

“Noted. Next time we crash I’ll tell you to aim for the edge of the lake,” Hale grit out, and Stiles didn’t comment on the pain in his voice. If Hale was going through lengths to disguise it, Stiles wasn’t going to be the asshole that called him out on it. 

“Ha-ha. Do you see how hard I’m laughing? You’d think you’d be a little more grateful to the guy who’s saving your ass.” 

Hale went quiet, and Stiles was too busy trying not to accidentally drown himself to fill the silence with anything else. 

After a few more minutes, Hale said softly, “You didn’t have to, y’know. You could’ve left me there.” 

Stiles swallowed and it had nothing to do with the lake water he was trying to breathe through. He could say he almost did, maybe half joke about it a little, but he really didn’t think that was anything close to what Hale wanted to hear. Call him a softy, but Stiles didn’t exactly think it was a good idea to tell someone he still had feelings for that he was considering letting them drown while they were too injured to fix it. 

“Yeah, well. I didn’t. I—I’m not that kind of asshole.” 

The conversation ended there, the silence filled with their own noises and vague bursts of sound from the battle far above their heads. 

Stiles nearly collapsed out of happiness when his feet brushed sand. The adrenaline had run out long ago, and his muscles were screaming for a break (and maybe a nap), but he had to push through. Being able to touch wasn’t cause for celebration when there were still two meters or so between the ground and the surface of the water. 

Hale let go a few steps later, and Stiles let him fall off his shoulders without complaint. Stiles was tired as all get out and if Hale wanted to face plant in forty or so centimeters of water, he could face plant in forty or so centimeters of water. 

“Fuck,” Hale moaned into the water, and Stiles echoed the sentiment. Hale propped himself up on his ass and left arm, holding his right arm tight across his chest, and looked out onto the water.

Stiles followed his gaze out to their sinking ship, though at that point there was nothing but a tiny bit of metal poking out of the water. He hoped someone would come fish that off the bottom at some point; it was a shame to destroy an ecosystem just for an idiot like him and a terrorist.

They sat long enough for them to catch their breaths—any longer and Stiles might have fallen asleep. He didn’t know about Hale, but he thought it was probably the same. 

Getting Hale out of the water was easier said than done, since as it turned out Hale _had_ broken something—his foot. Kind of wimpy for all the fuss he was putting up in the water, but it was on the same side as his arm injury and that had to suck. Definitely made it difficult to support him when Hale couldn’t lean into Stiles with his right shoulder and hobble onto the beach, but they made do. 

The beach was littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, and a couple of ship parts. One unidentified hunk of metal was still smoking, but the vast majority of the ship parts were rusted over with plant life growing over them, so they’d been there for a while. Stiles wondered if he’d see someone’s half rotted corpse along with it, but it seemed more like a ship graveyard than anything else. If the Zureks won and no one found them, he and Hale could add their bones to it.

Stiles sat Hale down on a flat-ish looking rock close to the edge of the water, and Hale sighed about as happily as he could, being injured and so far from where they were supposed to be. 

The wind bit harder when he was wet, and though he couldn’t see the sun through the cloud cover above him, it was bright and warm enough out there that Stiles figured he’d be warmer if he stripped down. Hale looked on disinterestedly, but Stiles was too cold to blush. It wasn’t like the guy hadn’t, well, _felt_ him naked, since it had been a little dark too do any seeing. He left his underwear on anyway, blue boxers that probably left little to the imagination as soaked through as they were, but for his peace of mind they did the job.

He set his socks and shoes on a small rock near Hale, and threw his jumpsuit and undershirt across a much larger rock two or three meters away so everything would hopefully dry soon enough. 

Hale wasn’t so much inclined to strip, but Stiles got him to remove the top half of his jumpsuit and his undershirt at least so Stiles could look at his arm. It looked just as painful as Hale had acted, and he’d cursed Stiles out _a lot_ during the whole clothing removal process. The wound itself was a wide stripe down the side of the upper portion of Hale’s arm, red and angry around the edges and white and blistered looking down the middle where it was slowly oozing blood.

“We probably ought to cover this,” Stiles said as he ran his fingertips carefully around the outer edges of the wound. 

Hale glared hard at him over his shoulder and said, “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you ripped my clothes off.” 

“You’re still wearing clothes, asswipe. Or am I just imagining your pants and shoes?” Stiles didn’t push to take those off because he had no idea what the hell was up with Hale’s foot, and taking his shoe off to remove the pants seemed like the worst idea ever with the whole swelling issue and all. “But for real, would it be weird to make a bandage out of my boxers?”

Hale’s face shifted to something more incredulous, and he jerked his arm out of Stiles’ grasp, only managing to wince a little when the movement pulled the wound apart. “ _Yes_.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose and looked down at his boxers. He’d only said it because he thought it would be the easiest material they had to tear into a strip. “Yeah, I guess it would be a little weird,” he said, and Hale huffed, the eye roll and the _of course_ clear in his tone.

A deep unsettling warmth grew in Stiles’ gut, and he rubbed at his stomach as if that would make it go away. They were talking like he and Silver used to, the half flirting biting remarks, but the knowledge that he was also Derek Hale was a little tough to swallow. The same guy that Stiles had come to know and care about was the same one who bombed Beacon Hills, and Stiles had saved him twice.

“Well, it would still be a good idea to stop the bleeding with something,” Stiles said, and it was clear the tone had shifted to something a little less playful. 

“With what? Everything on us is covered in filthy lake water.”

Stiles pressed his hand against his stomach and raised his eyes. Hale was staring pretty hard at his own knees. 

“Besides,” Hale added softly, “I think if I stop moving the blood will finally clot.”

His skin was fucking white in places; Stiles really didn’t think it was going to just clot. Dead skin didn’t work that way. And Stiles may not have known where it was on the burn degree scale, but he knew no one’s arm should look the way Hale’s did. It wasn’t his decision though, and if Hale thought it would clot, he’d probably get it to do so with sheer willpower.

“If you think so,” Stiles said, and it sounded hollow even to his own ears. Scott probably would’ve known how to help Hale, and probably would’ve known how to make him do it too, but Scott wasn’t there. It was just Stiles and Hale stuck on a beach while everyone they knew were risking their lives up above them.

He moved his hands to his sides and twisted the edges of his boxers in his fingertips just to feel the texture against the side of his nail beds. This stuff was making him anxious, and he needed to get out.

Stiles walked over to an oblong rock a meter away from Hale’s and perched up on it. Hale hadn’t looked up once to see where Stiles was going. 

There was fear in not knowing if Erica and Boyd had been successful, or if they’d made it out and landed somewhere okay. Most of the fighting happened up above the cloud cover, and Stiles couldn’t see anything through it, so he was pretty much left to guess if _that_ particular flash of light meant one thing, or if _that_ loud boom meant another. The battle was raging hard up there, that much he knew, and Scott was right there in it. 

He found himself watching from his spot underneath. There wasn’t much silence between the loud noises that filled the air—there were so many ships buzzing around that even he could hear their gentle hum. Every once in a while there’d be a large crack, like lightning striking a tree, and a ship, usually a mini-ship, would fall from the clouds. Stiles squinted to try and make out the colors or the shape, but every single one looked exactly the same: charred black and on fire. And every one had the chance of being someone he knew.

Stiles felt so fucking useless. He’d screwed things up with Hale so he was left on the ship, and then he’d run from everything. Who knew how things were going on The Crowned Galaxy, and who knew how things were going on the battle field? Certainly not him, that was for sure. All he could do was pray, and he wasn’t exactly the religious type.

Stiles didn’t know how long they’d been out there on that beach, but it had definitely gotten colder. He pulled his knees to his chest and sighed across his kneecaps. It didn’t really help the shivers wracking his body or the deep chill that settled in him, but it eased his heart a little. He looked over at Hale and found him lying down on the rock with his left arm thrown across his eyes. If it weren’t for the grimace Stiles could see just under his arm, he would’ve thought Hale was sleeping. 

“Did your arm clot?” Stiles called out, and dug his blunt fingernails into the meat of his calves. 

Hale lifted his arm enough for Stiles to see one eye staring at him for a second or two, then he dropped it back down. “Come here and see for yourself,” he replied, voice hoarse. 

Stiles wasn’t curious, not really, but he stood up anyway, cringing at the way his joints popped as he did. His footsteps were measured, even, and if they weren’t Stiles probably would’ve gone back to his rock. He needed something to focus on. 

Hale’s arm was lying tense and motionless by his side, and it looked worse even if it had clotted. There wasn’t blood running down it or anything, but some of the white parts of the wound had turned black, and Stiles had no doubt it was painful. He reached out cautiously and traced the edges of it with a careful fingertip. Hale nearly jumped three meters in the air when his hand made contact, but Stiles figured it had more to do with the fact that Stiles’ hand was an ice cube than anything else.

Hale was practically a furnace though, and Stiles found himself resting his other hand across Hale’s chest to soak up the heat. Hale didn’t flinch, but he did lift his arm up to stare at Stiles. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, and Stiles jerked his hands back. He really didn’t know. 

“It clotted,” Stiles said instead of an answer, and Hale’s eyes didn’t leave Stiles to check. Stiles didn’t know what answer Hale was trying to search for. He must have either found it or had given up, though, because the next thing Stiles knew Hale was ripping his eyes away.

Stiles didn’t walk back to his rock. He walked around to Hale’s good side and sat there, half off the edge until Hale grunted and shifted over. They weren’t touching, but Hale’s unnatural heat flowed across the inch or so between them and sent warmth down Stiles’ side. Hale’s jumpsuit hadn’t dried yet, but it wasn’t the same ice-cold touch against Stiles’ flesh as his boxers were, and Stiles felt himself pushing closer to it.

They watched the sky light up for a while, side-by-side, without saying anything. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, there was just too much history, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. They were just there: two people sitting mostly naked on a beach while their friends were fighting for their lives up above. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Hale eventually asked, after a loud crash erupted through the sky and a ship fell into the lake.

Stiles shifted a little, and his naked thigh accidentally brushed Hale’s covered one. Neither of them jerked away though, and they were left touching. 

“If I can ask one in return.” Stiles wasn’t exactly ready to do any favors, especially not with the subject matter they were watching. There were plenty of hard hitting ones Stiles could ask Hale too, so it wasn’t something to take lightly.

Hale sucked in a shuddering breath, clearly trying to decide if it was worth it, and in Stiles’ peripherals he could see him clench and unclench his hands against his thighs. In the end, Hale took it though.

“Why did you...Why don’t you pilot ships?” 

It wasn’t everyday someone turned down dual-ship possibilities simply because he refused to pilot a ship, Stiles got that. Hale had originally been a navigator, but his pilot had been Kate Argent and Stiles could see why that left him wanting something else. Stiles could make something up easily, lie and say something about him cracking under pressure and not being able to handle the responsibility, but Hale was well aware of the responsibility of both and neither position was all that easy.

“I,” Stiles started, then he looked up to the sky. “I lived on the southern border, just northeast of where the negotiations were taking place.” He paused for a moment and rubbed the fabric of his boxers between two fingers. It wasn’t exactly a secret that that entire end had gotten torn up when things went south and the war started. Hale was young though, only a little older than Stiles, so maybe he was too young to really know the extent. “I was ten the day of the first strike, and instead of watching the negotiations on TV like everyone else, my mom had decided to let me take her out on my dad’s airbike. The negotiations went bad, the Zureks got angry, and my mom died in my passenger seat.”

There were more details he could give out, so many more, like how he could barely think about piloting without remembering every gruesome detail, or how his dad never stopped drinking himself to sleep, but he didn’t want to share any of that. It was private, and even if he shared Silver’s face and personality, Stiles had no desire to share it with Derek Hale. 

“Alright, my turn,” Stiles said before Hale could ask anything else, or God forbid, say he was _sorry_. He wanted to know and he had to be aware that it wouldn’t be a nice story, so there was no way he could really be sorry. 

He could ask any number of things, there were a lot of questions surrounding Derek Hale and Silver, that was for sure but his mind kept coming back to one thing. It made him feel like a wimp or something, that _this_ was the burning question in his head, but it was. Betrayal was sort of a cementing feeling, that was for sure. 

“Did you ever plan on telling me?”

It had a lot of roots and meanings for Hale, but Stiles knew Hale understood what he was asking when he rolled his shoulders back, like he was fighting off anger. _Did Silver ever plan on telling Stiles that he was Derek Hale?_

“I knew you’d find out anyway, if we made the level eight, so I didn’t really have any plans to, no. And by the time it mattered for _Silver_ , I already knew how you reacted to my name so I didn’t exactly want to. If I had the choice, you would’ve never found out about Derek Hale.” 

Hale turned his face away so Stiles couldn’t see it, and Stiles fought down the urge to maliciously reach around him and dig his fingers hard into Hale’s laser pulse wound. Stiles really didn’t know what he expected, but he did know that he probably would’ve been a lot happier if he’d never known Silver in the capacity of Hale.

“Well, can you really blame me?” Stiles bit out. “You and Kate Argent killed a lot of people.” 

Hale laughed humorlessly, but left his head turned away. Stiles felt really cold, all of a sudden. “You know I never did find out what story the mission reports officially spread around the ships while I was incarcerated. All I knew was that by the time I was released to join the crew of my uncle’s ship, my family was almost entirely dead, my name had been dragged through shit, and no one knew what I looked like except for my own former shipmates.”

“Do you really want to know?” Stiles could do that, easy. He was twenty back then and still had his eyes and ears in everything—news traveled fast through rookies because none of them were old enough to know who to keep quiet about yet.

Hale didn’t answer, but he was biting his lip and looking at Stiles through the side of his eyes so he didn’t have to face him. Stiles took that to be a yes. 

“You and Argent kept a lot of military grade explosives in your room. Then one day, Argent flew out with them like you guys planned, but you backed out at the last minute and left her to fly a dual-ship by herself. She was shot down and killed, you were arrested in the hangar. You were exonerated. That’s the entirety of what we were told.”

Hale scoffed almost as soon as Stiles had finished, a hard sound with a dark edge that matched the look in Hale’s eye when he turned around fully. Stiles wasn’t really surprised that Hale had a problem with it; Hale lived it and that was the nature of depersonalization. Stiles would probably argue the events of yesterday’s breakfast if someone who wasn’t there tried to detail it.

“Do you want to know what really happened?” Hale asked, staring hard at Stiles, and Stiles shrank under the intensity of his gaze. 

He wasn’t sure he did. Stiles had known the events surrounding the Beacon Hills bombing for almost six years, and changing those beliefs, that knowledge, made him feel like he’d snuck too many cookies while Melissa McCall was out of the room. No one liked being uncomfortable.

But Stiles was curious. He’d always been the kid to go crying to parents because he’d hurt himself for science, or when the task was deemed too dangerous, gotten Scott to do it instead. That was how he discovered that peeing on electric fences did hurt (Scott) and that eating too much chocolate cake could make someone throw up (himself).

“Sure.”

Hale took a moment to collect himself, taking a few shallow breaths and moving his lips in a silent pep talk. Terrorism was a heavy subject, but Stiles didn’t think it was that scarring for the terrorist. He thought about voicing his opinion just to be a shit, and if he changed his mind last minute about hearing “the truth” he knew he could turn it into an argument. Hale never really backed down from those, unless he was emotionally compromised.

But then Hale was speaking and the moment passed. “Kate was...she was incredible,” Hale said. What a great start (not). “An amazing pilot, beautiful, smart—she always knew exactly what to say and I—”

“I can’t fucking listen to this,” Stiles interrupted. He didn’t sign up for the lovesick-over-a-fucking- _terrorist_ show—he already got enough of that as it was.

“No, hear me out,” Hale insisted, his voice carrying a breathy panic. He’d grasped Stiles’ knee in his desperation, and Stiles chose to look at it instead of the desperation in Hale’s eyes. “Please,” Hale added, and his voice was so shaken Stiles couldn’t make himself do anything but nod.

“I was enraptured,” he continued, and he paused momentarily to check and see if Stiles was going to stop him again, but Stiles didn’t, and Hale moved his hand back into his own personal space bubble. “I knew she kept those explosives in our room. I scored a nine with her and I lived with her—how could I _not_ know—but there something she always kept hidden from me. I didn’t care back then, and mostly I thought it was a mental illness or something, like she was paranoid and she needed them in there to feel safe-” Hale held his hand up in the universal _wait a second_ motion, like he knew Stiles was going to say something. “-I should’ve told someone, I know that, but I was a young twenty-something who thought he was invincible. I thought I could fix whatever was wrong with her, change her mind, which is ridiculous and stupid and fucking awful for everyone involved.”

Hale stopped to sigh and run his left hand through his hair. He’d almost lifted his right one too, but seemed to remember his injury at the last minute so it was just a hard twitch.

“Your story was right about one thing; I was arrested in a hangar. She tried to get me to go with her and I wouldn’t. She wouldn’t say what for, but I could just tell it wasn’t good. Gut instincts, you know? I found out she had all those explosives with her pretty soon after when I watched her burn down my fucking city, but I still couldn’t bring myself to be happy about it when she was shot out of the air. _My own family murdered_ , and I couldn’t be happy when their killer died.” 

Hale had to stop and catch his breath because he’d been talking so fast through the last bit.

“She sent me a message too, right as her ship went up smoke. ‘Look at what your people did to me. The Zurek way is the righteous way.’”

Hale didn’t add anything else, and Stiles bit his lip. Shit, that was heavy, and Stiles couldn’t really come up with the words to describe how he was feeling. If he had to, he might say it was like living his life thinking chocolate was this big awful bad thing, and that someone at some point gave him a little piece of something that tasted like heaven, then later found out it was chocolate. He felt betrayed and angry, but he still craved it like the dickens. Maybe.

“Why didn’t you try and clear your name if you were so innocent?” Stiles asked. It seemed so simple. If all of that was true, why not release that information? Hale wouldn’t have had to go through the whole second identity thing, and Stiles would’ve had a much easier time in the months since he’d joined the ship.

“Who would believe me? I was lucky that the court did.” The words sounded so sardonic and bitter that Stiles had to press down on the urge to lay a comforting hand against Hale’s back like he would Scott. His hand stayed firmly against his own thigh, and Hale added, almost as an afterthought, “And you know what? Back then I needed a break from Derek Hale too.”

Stiles swallowed. For all the shit he and Hale had been through, falling out of sync included, they were still a level nine compatibility. Hale wasn’t showing any of his tells, and Stiles was well aware of that. He was telling the truth, and it made Stiles hurt. 

He wanted to scream at him, punch him, dig his fingers into Hale’s bones, maybe, and ask him why he didn’t tell his own fucking navigator any of that stuff. Hale let Stiles treat him like shit, and Stiles felt nothing but shame and disgust for himself for that, and maybe a little anger at everything because despite everything, he still felt really fucking betrayed. 

Instead of any of that, though, Stiles pressed his shoulder into Hale’s, a little too hard to be a nudge, and asked, “You loved her didn’t you?” 

Hale was silent, and that was maybe answer enough, but Stiles already knew what it was going to be anyway. 

“You know what sucks?” Hale asked like he was changing the subject, and it was framed rhetorically, but Hale shut his mouth with a questioning look at Stiles, willing him to answer. He didn’t, mostly because there were a _lot_ of things that sucked, and Stiles didn’t want to overcome the knot forming in his throat to voice any of them. 

Hale swallowed and continued anyway. “I—” Hale’s voice cracked, and he let out a heavy exhale, like he was laughing at himself for being stupid. “I still love you, too.” 

Stiles’ hand twitched against his thigh, and he covered it up by clenching it in a tight, white knuckled fist. Hale’s dumb intense eyes were focused on Stiles, and they were definitely close enough for him to count the flecks of random colors in his iris, because hazel eyes were pretty much guaranteed to have weird stuff like that in them, but they mostly made Stiles feel small. The ‘too’ Hale had added was heavy, and it weighed down Stiles’ heart so much he was drowning in his own angst. 

“Derek, I…” Stiles began, but he couldn’t find the words to finish. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew he and Hale were two fucked up sons of bitches stuck in a cycle, and Stiles had the power to break it. Words were too much, too weighted, so Stiles gave into his urge and lifted his hand from his thigh. 

Hale was still looking at his face so he couldn’t have seen it coming, so Stiles didn’t hold it against him too much when Hale’s first instinct was to jerk out of the loose C he placed over Hale’s knuckles. Stiles knew he’d be back anyway, so he turned his hand over so the back of his hand rested against Hale’s damp thigh, and waited for Hale’s hot palm to slide home over his.

Hale held himself tense and stared at their joined hands like the fucking bogeyman was going to jump out and punch him in the dick. And that was the exact opposite of what Stiles wanted, so he threaded their fingers together and lightly stroked Hale’s thumb with his own in the hopes that that would loosen the stick in his ass. Instead of relaxing or anything, Hale shyly peeked at Stiles through his eyelashes, like he was looking for confirmation, and all Stiles could think to do was pull one side of his mouth up in a half-smile. That did the trick though, and Hale practically melted against Stiles, his head dropping to rest on Stiles shoulder. They were too close in height for it to be comfortable, but the butterflies fluttering around in his stomach at the sensation were too good for him to complain.

The sky lit up in one brilliant flash, and Stiles turned his eyes towards the sky over the lake. If the fire tinged silhouette of a giant ship just past the cloud cover didn’t indicate what was falling, the accompanying sound certainly would’ve. The trees around them bent over backwards as the fire above them sucked up the oxygen in the air, and it nearly cleaned it right out of Stiles’ lungs. It left a heavy roar in Stiles’ ears as it passed, and it practically forced Stiles into a poor imitation of crying—eyes watering, ears dull, and a death hold on his throat so hard he couldn’t do anything but gasp for breath.

Stiles squeezed Hale’s hand so tight he grunted against Stiles’ shoulder. An elite ship was falling.

"Cora's still on the ship," Hale said hoarsely, and Stiles felt his throat work against Stiles' shoulder. He remembered Hale's room, picture-less, and Hale's words in their screaming match on their dual-ship the day they went out of sync—Cora was probably the only family Hale had left, because Stiles had a strong feeling that Peter had officially removed himself from that list.

Stiles knocked his knee into Hale's, because he wasn't sure he could comfort him any other way. He needed the contact too, the grounding. What if it _was_ The Crowned Galaxy?

"They'll come back," Stiles said, and he truly believed it. Scott wouldn't let his ship crash unless it was falling into the Leviathan for a final blow, and he didn't know Allison or Lydia that well, but he was sure they would do the same. Everyone was still alive—Scott, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Allison, Lydia, Cora. _Everyone_. They were all alive because Stiles wouldn’t have it any other way.

For something that had had so much emotion and anticipation attached to it, there wasn’t much to its descent. All build up with none of the climax, and mere seconds later, the ship exited the cloud layer.

The pieces spread out and sparked like a cheap man’s fireworks, celebrating a mission success with the death of their enemy. This time though, Stiles could tell the colors of the falling bits. They were strange, harsh, and Stiles had seen that very pattern on the uniform of the soldiers who’d been shooting at them earlier that day.

It was the Leviathan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since everyone seems to be mentioning this stuff, haha, I have a [tumblr](http://sensualstereks.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanwork: Conquest of Spaces](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088611) by [Yolanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yolanna/pseuds/Yolanna)




End file.
